Reawakening
by Ender Mahe
Summary: Shepard is back, but she's not who she used to be.  It's all she can do to put one step in front of the other.  Shoker.  Starts very cannon, gradually opens up to examine Shepard's past and her relationship with Joker.  Dark themes of fear, identity, war.
1. Changes

Chapter 1: Changes

Joker stepped into the commanders quarters as quickly as his weak body would take him, worry stamped across his features. It was very early, yes, but his superior, Commander Shepard, should have answered the comm the third time around... It took a moment, then, to recognize Shepard slumped at her desk unmoving.

As always he was struck by how beautiful she was, despite the scars. Her delicate black hair was shoulder length and wispy, which stood in contrast with her pale skin. Many months living in the confines of a starship made everyone pale. Soft blue patterns played across her skin from the wall-length fish tanks lights, the room's only illumination. She still wore her heavy combat armor, though it had been hours since she boarded the ship from their last mission. It was pretty banged up these days, paint ripped off by sand-sized hyper-velocity bullets and the various assortment of bladed weapons she'd met in the darker corners of their travels across the galaxy. As he stepped towards her, reaching for her shoulder, he noticed the bulky contraption wrapped around her skull as an expensive audio headset.

She started at his touch, already reaching for her pistol. Joker started just as badly when he realized she actually had it in her hand, instead of leaving it down in the armory as required by Cerberus. The M5 pistol was lined up with his face, the laser sight dancing patterns on his forehead, before Shepard's bloodshot hazel eyes lit up in recognition. Slowly, so slowly, she lowered the weapon back down to its holster at her waist, where it folded in on itself.

Joker held his silence as Shepard sighed and slowly pulled off the headset. As soon as it was off her head the heavy pulsating beats assaulted his ears; it had to be way past the point the volume started to cause hearing loss. She hit the mute button built into the side of the headphones. The sudden silence was even worse.

"Sorry, Joker. What is it?"

It didn't look like he'd be getting more of an explanation than that. Yet his snarky side couldn't quit. "Jeez Shepard, what's with the music? You're killing your ears, you know."

She winced at his choice of words. _No, there's no way she could even think..._

"The music... It's just. I don't know." She gazed at his feet, unable to meet his gaze. "Sometimes when I listen to it turned way up, I can lose myself in it. I could be anyone, anywhere. I can just be empty, feeling instead of thinking. No pressure."

He was pretty sure she wouldn't even have said that much to anyone else on the ship.

"Mmmm. Well. Ah, you had me worried there, not answering your comm like that."

Shepard raised an eyebrow and gave him a little shrug. "Sorry."

"Ok. Just saying."

After another long pause in which Shepard just stared at him, he turned and fled. He glanced back as the elevator door closed on him to see Shepard already lost back in the music, headphones shutting out the world. Her eyes were closed and she was nodding slowly, almost imperceptibly, to the beat he couldn't hear.

He didn't want to believe it, but it was slapping him in the face. Shepard was falling apart.

**Six Months Previously**

Of all things it was the hands that bothered him. They were just so... different. Those hands, strong, scarred, and calloused, that had gripped the back of his pilot's couch, that had hauled him to the escape pod, that had launched the pod even as she was being sucked into the void—they were indelibly imprinted in his mind. These hands were pure and unmarked. Devoid of history, of connection. Empty.

Jeff Moreau, currently (and probably permanently) unassigned pilot extraordinaire, stood observing a massive tank. Endless wires and monitors trailed in every direction. The tank itself was filled with a pale blue fluid which cycled constantly, bubbling with added oxygen. Within the tank stood, though that was too active a word for it, a naked woman whose privacy was only narrowly guarded by strips of opaque fabric. Commander Shepard, paragon of humanity, Savior of the Citadel, cast off of the council, and ultimately another empty body that didn't live to fulfill her dreams.

_Don't think of her that way Jeff. This bitterness business is starting to get to you._

A sudden movement in the tank drew Jeff's eye. Could it have been . . .

Her hand twitched again. He opened his mouth and turned-

"Just testing the nervous impulses while we rehydrate her, Jeff, nothing to worry about."

The voice's owner, his guide and unofficial guard dog, stood back in the shadows cast by the bright medical monitors at her workstation.

"Don't call me that." He tried to cover up his irritation with humor. "To you, it's Grand Admiral, or Joker if you must. Ah, the life of a hero." Sarcasm dripped from every word.

She waited in silence. Joker gave a low sigh.

"Alright Cerberus. I didn't think I'd ever see the day, but you've got a deal. Bring her back and I'm in."

Time went slowly for Joker as days slowly turned to weeks and months. Aside from his quick visit to the secret Cerberus space station (after they'd carefully ensured he couldn't figure out precisely where they'd gone) he'd had no contact with anyone even remotely resembling a Cerberus agent. He'd spent his time on the Citadel, the center of the galactic community and home of the multi-species Council which governed most of known space. All of this had come as quite a surprise to humanity a few generations back, and they were still in the process of playing catch-up.

At times like this, leaning against a bridge railing and looking out over one of the lakes of the prestigious Presidium deck of the Citadel, feeling the artificially generated breeze play across his face, it seemed like it might never have happened; that seeing Shepard, Cerberus, all of it was just another nightmare. But the credits kept coming in regularly. In turns it gave him a fevered sense of wild hope, only in the next moment to have the fact that he'd more or less signed up with a terrorist organization slam back into his mind. Who'd have imagined he'd end up here?

The breeze kept blowing, churning the lazy thoughts floating through his mind.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there when the man approached him. His measure of time was limited to how many times he'd had to sit on a bench to rest his legs (four). He hadn't quite gotten the timing down since the new (terrorist funded!) cybernetics had gone into his legs. The man, as painfully nondescript as one can be, sent alarm bells ringing. Nobody looked _that_ normal.

Defense mechanisms he'd built over many years kicked into high gear, spewing passive-aggressive irony with a hard undercurrent in all directions. "Sorry, no autographs today buddy."

"No doubt," the man snorted in amusement. "You leave in 12 hours on the Gryphon, a shuttle at docking station 94." With that he turned and nonchalantly walked away.

Joker turned back to look over the lake. Despite everything, the little ember of hope he'd been trying to quash for months had burst into a flame. _Don't do this to yourself, Joker. Dead is dead. There's no coming back. Even if she did, imagine how much harder a zombie Shepard would push you. Probably make you do a suicide run or something, as if taking on rogue council secret agents and scary artificial intelligences bent on galactic extermination wasn't bad enough. Don't go, it's obviously a lie._

Even as he said it, he knew he'd be at Docking Station 94, bag packed, and an hour early to boot. Shepard was the only one who could get him to be punctual. He shook his head with a sigh and wandered off towards his apartment.

It was crazy, thought Shepard, how quickly things changed. How quickly all her troubles were taken care of, taken away. One moment she was in her cabin wrestling with her demons, and the next she was in combat armor down in engineering putting out fires and sending off the distress message. Another blink, a moment, and she was shoving Joker into the escape pod, even as the fire from that mystery ship tore through the Normandy, killing the artificial gravity. She'd known, then, that it was the end. A rapidly decaying close orbit, hostile fire and no friendly ships within the system was bad. With no escape pod survival was impossible. Death.

It was that knowledge, really, that she was about to put down her burden, that had given her the strength to reach out and launch Joker's escape pod. The last pod. Relief, and nobody to blame her for it. A way out.

Now, as she watched flaming wreckage stream down towards the planet all around her, she could breathe again. Relax. She looked with new found wonder at the glory of the stars, something she hadn't thought about since the Skyllian Blitz. They glowed solidly, the burning glory of a thousand suns, totally unlike the faint, unsteady sparkle she'd seen growing up under Earth's smoggy skies. They were beautiful.

The sudden snap-hiss of her oxygen channel being severed didn't alarm her. She was already dead. Mostly it just annoyed her, robbing her of the serenity of her final moments looking up. Her body jerked of its own accord, vainly trying to hold in the air for another minute, another second of life. She tried to look up at the stars, but she couldn't find them, she couldn't...

And just like that, someone turned the lights back on. Her first sensation was a burning pain all over her body. Lines of liquid fire traced along her legs, chest, back and face. Even her brain felt like it was choking on flames and smoke. Her first, instinctive reaction was to curl up, which she only half managed to suppress, clutching at her right side instead. A voice echoed somewhere beyond comprehension, but strong and persistent. An alarm blared its shrill cry and she could feel the vibrations of explosions rippling through her, every movement an agony.

_So this is hell._

"Shepard... armor in the... der attack..."

She was starting to make sense of the voice now, though it still felt like her ears were cranking the volume up and down haphazardly.

_It wouldn't be hell without violence._

Her mind struggled to make sense of the massive overload of information. She had _died_. She knew it, remembered every last moment aboard the Normandy SR-1 and her crazed flight into the atmosphere of some otherwise unimportant, backwater planet. There was no out-of-nowhere ship to save her. And yet...

Even as her mind worked, gears grinding away, her body slipped into the autopilot mode spawned of many, many hours of training. If there was one thing she knew, it was combat. She shut down the pain, compartmentalized it away, and slid into the armor neatly laid out in the bedside locker. It fit her perfectly, every inch adjusted exactly to each quirk in her body, a process which normally took weeks. She suppressed a shudder at the thought of unknown hands measuring, adjusting.

Whoever had made the armor had taken the time to emblazon the N7 marker on, which identified her as a member of the elite marine Special Forces division. There was even a pistol, an M3 Predator by the markings along the short barrel. But there was something off about it...

_What the-_ "There's no thermal clip!"

The weapon appeared a standard issue heavy pistol. The small mass effect generating core of element zero was in its place, ready to temporarily diminish the mass on the tiny grains of metal from the ammo block and accelerate them to hypervelocities, but the thermal clip which absorbed the resulting heat was missing altogether.

"Shepard get down, that door's going to explode!" cried the intercom voice.

Once again she let the mystery slide in favor of immediate circumstances. She just managed to slip behind what had been her bed, (_tomb?)_ when the doors exploded inwards with a blast of superheated air. Even as the debris was falling she was out from cover and sliding forward, back in the N7 groove, seeking targets. A momentary pause at the body of a fallen human (_a soldier?_)with emblems she didn't recognize acquired her a thermal clip, which slotted neatly into her Predator. She took a moment to check—shot in the back. Great. A surprise attack.

She turned right down the next corridor past medical displays and expensive looking equipment, her only option as the base started to lock down and close off doors. Corridors and bullet-proof glass funneled her in a straight path that seemed far too predetermined for her liking. She crept silently on through laboratories, past research stations all in white and clean steel. Nearby she could hear the clanking of mechs, even the deep, rumbling buzz of a heavy mech's machine gun, and distant screams. Not something to face with only a pistol, particularly one she'd never fired before.

At last her luck ran out and three light mechs cut off her only path. Backwards led nowhere, the only way was through. A quick heave and a stainless steel desk became a temporary barricade, scattering papers, pens, and knicknacks across the floor. Almost immediately the desk started to shudder under the impact of the mechs' combined fire. The mechs would be circling around. No time to waste.

Keeping as low as she could, Shepard peeked out around the left side of her cover, lined up her M3 on the nearest mech, and opened fire. The pistol seemed to shoot faster than she remembered. She studied the thing even as her shots chipped away at the mechs armor and made it struggle to maintain its balance. They were bipedal, almost humanoid looking, though all of their limbs were quite thin, which gave them a top-heavy appearance. The mech's head was dominated by a single sighting lens set dead center, which spun as it refocused on Shepard. It staggered as her rounds finally punctured its armor, blowing through its painted-on registration number and sending it tumbling to the ground.

Return fire focused on her from the other two mechs, clanging off the desk and sizzling against the shielding system built into her armor. She ducked back behind cover. After a few moments the faint hum and reassuring tingle of her shields returned.

_Let's see if this still works_.

Wherever she was, whatever was happening, she might as well find out what she could do.

Shepard reached deep inside herself to that little mental irregularity, that spark of power, that awareness of power and gravity. humanity had never experienced anything like it until the contact with the Citadel and its intergalactic community. Aliens right and left seemed to naturally reach out and manipulate reality in ways human science could hardly describe, much less emulate. Then the first accidental spill of imported Element Zero happened. Overnight humans started to exhibit uncontrolled "biotic" behavior, which the human-wide military Alliance was quick to take advantage of. Despite many failures and bouts of outright insanity, they had finally come up with a stable system of implanted amplifiers for these biotic soldiers. Shepard had had one, but she hadn't even thought to check...

The blue corona of power flickered faintly on her skin as she mentally condensed and focused the power into a mass-effect generating pull. With a grimace of effort she stepped out from behind the remains of her desk and _pulled_ on the closest of the mechs. The power drained away as quickly as it had come, but served only to knock the closest mech off balance. The same pull that had previously lifted a whole squad of mechs in the air only _tripped_ one! Irrational anger, the consummation of all the pain confusion and fear she felt burst instantaneously into life, and disregarding the danger, caution, and even self-preservation she strode straight out to the downed mech. The last mech's sand-sized projectiles clanked and hissed off her shields and armor as she put the Predator to the closer Mech's head and pulled the trigger.

Just as it gave its last spluttering spark her shields gave out. To top it off, the thermal clip ejected itself without so much as a warning from her weapon and tumbled away. And then something happened that had never happened before.

Shepard lost control.

She'd been angry, enraged even, full of passion, but never, not even as civilians were slaughtered around her, had she ever given over control to the anger. It was not something soldiers did, if they wanted to stay alive.

With a snarl of primal ferocity she aimed all of her anger, hatred, all of _herself_ at that last mech which stood calmly aiming to take the kill shot, too far out of reach. Instinctively, almost unintentionally, she pulled on her biotics harder than she ever had before, farther than anyone had done without losing their minds altogether. But instead of throwing it out of herself at the mech, she threw herself _into_ the biotic storm which crackled across her skin with a wild, self-destructive abandon.

The result was something she had never seen before. Never even heard of before. The biotic corona gathered around her actually launched _her_ at the mech. The impact was enormous, as the biotics rippling like lightning instantly transferred all of her momentum into the light mech, launching it backwards into the smooth white wall and shattering it into spluttering, dying remnants.

Shepard staggered, her equilibrium thrown off by the abrupt deceleration. Her shoulder hit the wall, and gingerly she slid down to the floor as circuits and shattered metal rained down around her. An abrupt feeling of nausea tore through her stomach, and quickly forced whatever was down there up and out. She choked on the vomit, a pale white mess of goo.

_What _am_ I? What happened to me?_

Silence was her only response.

With the end of the direct threat her adrenaline sputtered out, and she was unable to rise. The feeling of lying there, not moving, just doing nothing was so gloriously peaceful. And it was ok, ok, ok because nobody was counting on her. She was dead. Nobody would die if she didn't move. She didn't think she'd ever stand again.

Her eyes closed.

Her head drooped.


	2. Men and Memories

Chapter 2: Men and Memories

The pain came back.

Shepard groaned and opened her eyes again, looking for a distraction, for anything to take her mind off the pain. It was then she noticed a side door, something she never would have missed before... _whatever_ happened to her. Something was definitely not right. She grit her teeth and climbed, hand over hand, up the wall and back to her feet. It took only one faltering step before it occurred to her that her gun once again lacked a thermal clip.

After a few moments of scrabbling in the debris she found the clip which was so determined to stay out of her gun. Her mind was so muddled that she didn't realize until the moment her long, thin fingers closed on the clip that it was still white hot. She jerked her hand back with a wordless exclamation of pain and clutched her fingers to her chest while another, clearer part of her mind set about trying to explain what had happened. _It's like it was designed to hold in heat, not expel it. That would explain why I could fire so fast... Oh. They're disposable._ Stupid. It was obvious. Why hadn't she figured it out sooner? Abruptly she realized she was staring into space again. At her burnt fingers. Which were glowing.

Right there on the fingertips where a layer of skin had been burnt off, the skin had become thin enough to see the faint electronic glow of cybernetics. For a single moment everything, every single moving part in her mind stood still. And in that moment something within her died. The part of her mind that had been comparing and contrasting herself against the woman she was, trying to gauge what had changed, what was still the same, fell silent.

Commander Shepard was dead. Whatever she was now, it bore no relation to what had come before.

She sought out the only source of escape available to her and sunk her consciousness into the pain. It consumed her, blocking all thoughts, all fear, all horror. She sank and sank and sank until she was empty.

The door slid open silently to reveal a private lab station. The neatly arranged pens and paper, printed EEG readings and biofeedback response graphs stood in stark contrast to the chaos of the hallway. The chair was even pushed in. On the center of the desk stood a projected computer screen, already open to a data log. She pressed play.

A woman's face appeared on the screen. It was unnaturally smooth and perfectly symmetrical, framed by raven hair which curled nicely at the shoulder. The kind of face that made your self-esteem take a hit as soon as she entered the room. It began to speak as Shepard approached.

"Test subject has been recovered, but the damage is far worse than we initially feared. In addition to the expected burns and internal injuries from the explosion, the subject has suffered significant cellular breakdown due to long-term exposure to vacuum and sub-zero temperatures. Despite the extent of the physical trauma, Wilson assures me subject is salvageable. The Lazarus Project will proceed as planned."

The recording paused for a moment before automatically cycling through the rest of the entries.

"Log update." This one was audio only, and in a man's voice. "The cost of this project is astronomical; over 4 billion credits so far, but nobody seems to care that we've gone over-budget. I don't know where the boss gets all his money... maybe it's better not to know. I just wish he'd kick a little more in my direction once in a while."

The woman returned. "Progress is slow but subject shows sign of recovery. Major organs are again functional and there are signs of rudimentary neurological activity. In an effort to accelerate the process, we've moved from simple organic reconstruction to bio-synthetic fusion. Initial results show promise."

"Log update. The Lazarus Project is about to enter the final phase. It's taken nearly two years, but we did it. Commander Shepard is alive! This is the most amazing medical achievement in recorded history! Maybe now Miranda will finally show some appreciation for everything I've done."

The woman -Miranda perhaps?- spoke again. "Physical reconstruction of subject is complete, but we still need to evaluate all mental and neurological functions. Our orders were clear: make Commander Shepard who she was before the explosion- the same mind, the same morals, the same personality. If we alter her identity in any way, if she's somehow not the woman she used to be, the Lazarus Project will have failed. I refuse to let that happen."

At last the final log spun down. Shepard understood the information conceptually. In an odd way it even helped to be only the "subject," not a real person at all. She could refer to it, use it to make decisions about her own capabilities. But it didn't really penetrate. The feeling part of her was buried so far down that nothing could.

The video display cut to static and turned itself off. Shepard stared at the space it had occupied for a moment longer, blinked once, and turned away.

Back out in the hallway she silently gathered up the spent thermal clips from the destroyed mechs, strapped them to the (in retrospect) obviously designed clip holders, and ghosted onwards.

Several times mechs tried to stop her, but they stood no chance. She made no noise as she danced from cover to cover, aside from the metronome-steady hammer of her pistol. Even when microscopic shards of melting plastic from a near miss splashed across her face there was no cry of pain, no grimace. This was beyond the groove of a totally competent N7 marine, or even the deadly focus of the Council special agent Spectre she had been. This was emptiness.

Somewhere deep inside, the Shepard that wasn't drowned in the agony of the searing weld-marks that seemed to be all that held her body together observed and strategized in complete detachment. It was almost a dream, a theoretical practice in tactics she watched someone else perform. The elation of success, the triumph of victory, was now merely the satisfaction that the plan had worked, that whoever she was ordering around hadn't botched it.

She noted as her body slid the last few feet into cover, biotically pulling a mech to its knees as white hot armor-piercing rounds flashed around her, that with each use her biotic pull and push became a little stronger. She calculated that it would be some time before she would achieve her former strength even as she peeked her M-3 around her cover to blow off a mech's head with a round placed exactly in the center of its telescopic lens.

At last she rounded a corner and saw another human being. He was pinned down on the walkway she'd just entered, trading fire with a handful of mechs on another walkway a good ten meters away. She calmly walked through the incoming fire as the mechs started to target her. The human, a burly-muscled black man wearing the same uniform as the bodies scattered about the station, turned and gaped at her calm entrance. She dropped down into cover beside him just as her shields gave out. Just as she'd calculated. No wasted effort.

He tactfully passed over the apparent insanity of her entrance. "What are you doing here? I thought you were still a work in progress."

Something was happening inside her, moving. Perhaps it was the presence of another human, or maybe it was something baser, having a man abruptly so close to her, but she couldn't show the emptiness that consumed her. There was something intensely personal about the loss of self. She put on a mask, her old Commander mask she'd used to gain the respect of her squad mates in the Alliance Marines, and later the crew of the Normandy SR-1.

The mask's origins went way back, all the way back to Earth.

She'd grown up on the streets of Europe, eventually learning that her street, with its nooks and crannies, it's abandoned warehouse where the Angeles gang slept, and even two streets down where the Serpentis gang lurked, all belonged to some country called Germany. Not that this Germany did much for her. The police hovercars avoided this part of the city.

She had grown up speaking a mix of languages, the English the whole world spoke, but also a fairly passable Spanish by the standards of the Hispanic immigrants that made up the core of the gang. She was even starting to get the hang of what turned out to be German. Languages, speaking, came naturally to her. All of which was why she, a (mostly) white girl of uncertain origins was allowed to run with the Angeles. It made her useful in bargaining with the off-world Red Sand dealers that formed the only real source of income for the gang. Then she sold the highly addictive hallucinogenic to the German natives, or far more frequently, to the other immigrants which inhabited the government paid tenement buildings.

She lived on the razor's edge, the better profit margins she brought in all that could make up for the hit to the gangs reputation in relying on this gringa. Her eloquence was all that kept her alive—no other gang would have taken her in after her association with the Angeles, and she wouldn't survive a week in contested territory without a gang to back her. That driving life-or-death need to succeed, to beat out anyone and anything at the bargaining table had hardened into a mask she put on, a cynical, totally self-assured braggart who was about to get her way. Again. It also, of necessity, brought the self-discipline to never ever take it off.

Her only escape, her only let up in the need to be useful, helpful, and generally respected all the time no matter how she actually felt was at public school. The gang sometimes let her attend classes after many promises and assurances that it would let her get at least 2% more profit on deals. The economics she ate up once she realized that each company was a big gang, and the Government the occasional fleet of police coming in to brutalize a gang for expanding into territory they deemed off-limits. The marketplace was almost second nature after the give and take of the street.

She even grasped the history and demographics, how each big gang, each country in Europe had not recruited enough new members to take care of the old ones and collapsed. She wasn't quite sure why they didn't just abandon the useless ones though. That definitely didn't fit with the gang's mentality. But her real joy came simply from listening to her teachers talk. Their initial fear of her and particularly her associates was overcome as she started to feel safe enough to take off the mask for a moment at a time. Her enthusiasm, and a little silver-tongued persuasion, opened them right up. The way they spoke then, so elevated and linguistic, and for no more reason than to share ideas, was intoxicating.

And then everything changed.

Late one night she'd been heading to a meeting point with a dealer, two Angeles goons eying the streets, when an explosion rocked the fear-induced quiet of the cold spring night. She squinted and looked away, blinded by the glaring light of a flaming heavy air car, the industrial hauling kind, as it plummeted from the sky. All she could do was crouch in terror as the noise grew louder and louder, too bright to see too loud to think here it com-

The impact and resulting fireball blew her off her feet and into the heavy shutters over a merchant stall which clubbed her into oblivion.

She had woken hours later to the sound of approaching sirens. It hook the authorities some time to gather the resources to come to this side of town, but come they did. It was only then that she noticed the bluish-white ooze that had leaked all around her, covering her hands and legs. She shrieked and leaped upright, frantically wiping it off herself. The liquid was semi-viscous and clung to her, a surprisingly cold second skin she scraped off onto the concrete, tree bark, her clothes, anything. At last her mind caught up to the situation and she fled back towards the Angeles warehouse.

She didn't even get close.

As soon as the lookouts caught sight of her with droplets of eezo pouring off her, they didn't bother to ask permission before opening fire. The stigma of insane biotics was still too strong.

Instincts kicked in and she took off running, leaving her meager pile of possessions behind forever.

The night that followed was the longest of Shepard's life. She wandered, continually moving to stay warm with the still-cool temperatures of early spring, shivering with every breeze in her still-damp clothing. Her head somehow didn't seem right, with weird feelings, pressure in places she'd never felt before, and periodic intense headaches. The chaos in her skull kept her attention off her feet, and she wandered further than she'd ever gone before.

When dawn broke she found herself huddled on a street corner, shivering, just like the homeless she'd always despised—the useless. And now there she was, too, through no fault of her own; dirty, sweaty, greasy chopped-short hair draped over her tattered shirt still smeared with eezo. She shuddered again, though not from the cold. She curled in on herself, hugging her knees to her chest, trying to figure out what to do.

Her eye was caught by a building across the street; right there amidst the drab, run-down shopping center where only half the shops were officially occupied, stood the cleanest building she'd ever seen. It was white, a true clean white, not the faintly sordid off-white she was accustomed to. Even the street in front of it was swept clean, and there were sparkling windows with holographic displays in them. Almost before she realized she'd moved she was across the street staring through the windows.

There were models of combat armor on stands, pistols and assault rifles behind glass cases, instructional holos, crisp unit flags hung up on walls, all beneath the massive banner of the Systems Alliance logo. There were people inside, two men and two women, smartly dressed in pressed fatigues. Even the people were clean! Shepard had been dirty all her life, but never before had she considered herself filthy. That was the moment, she could still remember it clearly after all this time, that she had made the decision which had propelled her forward through everything. She saw what she wanted, what she could be. She walked inside.

"Hey Sarge, we got another one." One of the woman looked over at her. She tried to hide it, but the clenched jaw gave her disgust away to so experienced a bargainer as Shepard. Shepard was instantly focused again—whatever they had, she wanted it, and she wouldn't give up until she got it. The mask was back on.

"What do you want little girl?"

Shepard drew herself up. "I want in. I want in to whatever gang you belong to."

"Listen, I know you're tough, girl, but..."

Just then Shepard was struck by the strongest headache yet, strong enough to bring her to her knees. She was only vaguely aware that the display cases were rattling in time with the pulses in her mind. After a few moments the pain faded again. Shepard looked up at the woman, already scrambling to come up with a way to regain the ground she'd lost by showing weakness, only to see her holding out a clipboard.

"Sign here."

The discipline of life in the military fit her well. There she acquired the skills of a solid marine, serving with distinction and becoming something of a natural leader. That's what her file said anyway. Her mask gained a polish from the military, with its ever present demand to adore those in command, or at least offer the utmost respect. The self-confidence part of the mask remained, but the cockiness slipped into pure competence.

To Shepard it seemed that the same cycle repeated itself over and over. She would be promoted and transferred, and become the object of adoration for a few of the males in her newest unit. She discovered, to her surprise, that she wasn't bad looking when she was cleaned up. They would try and make a pass, mistaking her you-will-like-me mask as interest, and she'd have to set them down nicely. They were better than most of the gang, at least. Some of them took it well, but most got upset and caused trouble, especially when she was moved into leadership positions. Then she'd set them down hard. The grumbling only lasted a few days before she demonstrated that she'd mastered everything they had, better than they had. Somewhere along the line it turned into a distant respect, just the way she liked it. She'd guarded her inner self jealously her entire life; she wasn't about to break the system that had kept her alive so well now.

To Shepard, however, it was not the desire for promotion that drove her, but rather the urge, almost the obsession, to learn that made her develop so quickly. Once again, knowing more than the other guy was what kept her alive. First it was Basic with the marines, learning all there was to know about her standard issue Raikou pistol, Onyx light armor, and Banshee assault rifle. Then, after not so subtle hints that she apply to Officer Candidate School, came the specialization in close combat and learning how to assemble and disassemble her Katana shotgun in her sleep.

Finally she was bounced into the N's, eventually achieving the rank of Lieutenant-Commander after some... other adventures. Occasionally she'd be sent to some new experimental Biotic training, briefly participating in the Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training before it was shut down, among others.

All of which, together, had led to her selection as XO of the SR-1 Normandy. That led to chasing after Saren and having to become a Spectre to do what needed to be done. And Saren led to Sovereign, the Reaper controlling him, and its crazy plot to eradicate all life. And then she'd gotten Ashley killed, and still hadn't figured out how to deal with it when Shepard herself had died. And then, somehow, she ended up here, wherever or whatever "here" was. Which was why, while suffering some of the worst mental and physical pain she'd ever experienced, the _last_ thing she wanted was anybody to know about it.

The mask was back on.

"Shepard? Things must be worse than I thought if Miranda has you running around." The huge man _did_ look surprised. Perhaps it was the truth. She decided in an instant to play it safe, to hold back what she'd learned.

"I just woke up. You probably know more than I do." Her voice was curiously flat, still struggling to find the politely curious tone she'd used amidst all the changes in her body.

"Yeah, sorry. I forget this is all new to you right now. I'll fill you in, but we better get you to the shuttles first."

The urge, the need to understand, kicked in again. "I know this isn't the best time, but I'm sick of stumbling around when I don't know what's going on."  
>glanced back at her for a moment from his surveying of the opposite walkway. He gave a little shrug.<p>

"Fair enough. I'll give you the quick version. You and your ship were attacked and destroyed. You were killed, Dead as dead can be when they brought you here. Our scientists spent the last two years putting you back together. You've been comatose, or worse, that whole time."

He winced, glancing out at the wreckage of the mechs he'd already taken down. "Welcome back to your life." The doors slid open to the clanking of a squad of light mechs which zeroed in almost instantly on their position.

"I'll tell you what—you help me finish off those mechs, and I'll play 20 questions with you all day. We're low on Thermal Clips, but I'm a biotic. Just give the order when you want me to hit them with the good stuff."

The battle went quickly. Between the two biotics the mechs were constantly off balance when they weren't sailing helplessly through the air, easy targets. Once the mechs were down the humans, too, slid to the floor, backs to the railing.

_Where to start? _A morbid curiosity drove her first question.

"You said they spent _two years_ rebuilding me? How bad were my injuries?"

She used the pronoun "I" more out of habit, than anything else. Shepard was dead.

"I'm no doctor, but it was bad. When I first saw you, you were nothing but meat and tubes. Anywhere else they'd have put you in a coffin, but Project Lazarus was different. Cutting-edge technology."

That piqued her curiosity. What was she?

"What do you mean? Cloning? Cybernetics?" As if that wasn't clear enough already. Still, start easy and work to the harder questions.

"I don't know the details. You'd have to ask the scientists. But I'm pretty sure you're not a clone. They wanted to bring you back exactly as you were. You're still you... you just might have a few extra bits and pieces now."

Shepard let the information wash over her. Nothing penetrated to that inner part of herself. You don't come back from death. Damn it, she'd gotten out! No more pressure, no more tearing herself apart for having to choose between saving Kaidan Alenko, a proven officer and (rare) stable 2nd Generation Biotic and Ashley Williams, a common soldier, and leaving her to die. To have to choose! To leave someone for no better reason than that they were normal, not a freak with biotic powers like she was. Shepard was no stranger to having soldiers die under her command, but she'd never chosen to leave one behind. No, she couldn't face that again. Shepard was dead. She had to be. And she'd thought _this_ was hell.

"What's the quickest way off this station?"

"Depends on where the mechs are thickest. This way." He paused for a moment. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I'm Jacob, Jacob Taylor."

The mask slipped.

_Jake standing over her, leering, reaching for-_

She crushed the thought

"...Are you alright?"

"Yeah, just, waking up and everything..." He let it drop.

They headed warily into the engineering tunnels hoping to encounter fewer mechs. The handful they did meet dropped quickly, though Shepard could feel herself starting to slow down. The constant, ceaseless pain, compounded by the chaos of figuring out who she was, and who she wasn't, and the effort of swallowing all that up inside her mask while fighting through two dozen mechs was too much for anyone, not to mention someone who'd been dead 20 minutes ago.

By the time they reached another survivor, Wilson, she could hardly think straight. When they reached the shuttles she wasn't far from being delirious. She vaguely recognized the woman in the distinctive white catsuit waiting for them as Miranda from the logs, but it was all hazy. Then Miranda shot Wilson claiming he was a traitor. A little part of Shepard protested, the chunk of the upstanding paragon of humanity these people tried to steal from the old Shepard and shove into her, but they'd made it to the shuttles and nobody was relying on her anymore, and she was so tired, so tired, so . . .

The last thing she could remember was Miranda calling out to her as the floor rushed up to meet her.


	3. Slave to Freedom

Note: Sorry it's been so long, but I've been building up a buffer to try and make my updates more regular and working with an editor, ShadesOfMauve, who's been fantastic. I re-uploaded the first two chapters with substantial edits as well, to try to even out the quality. Let me know what you think!

Chapter 3: Slave to Freedom

Consciousness returned slowly. There was something big and important she needed to think about, but unlike her former self, she didn't rush up to greet it. Instead she took the time to luxuriate in the feel of cool, expensive sheets and a real, full-sized bed, something she hadn't had the chance to appreciate since . . . since before she died.

She opened her eyes and sighed. Back to life.

At least nobody was trying to kill her this time. She pulled her legs out of the tangle she'd made of the sheets and slid around to put her feet on the floor. Her vision blurred as blood rushed to her head, though a moment later the worst of it had passed. Her body was still not back to normal, however. The blinding pain had receded into a deep throb and her limbs still felt almost... sticky wasn't the right word, but it was close. Slow. Rusty. Shepard made this analysis in the back of her mind, while the rest of her seemed to sag. Life again. She wasn't like that old Shepard though . . . she hadn't gotten anyone killed yet.

If she stayed in bed, maybe it would stay that way.

"Good morning Shepard." She glanced around and finally located the source of the tinny voice in a speaker built into the wall at the head of her bed. "The Illusive Man would like to speak with you. Head down the hall, turn left, and he's in the conference room, first door on your right."

By this point Shepard had woken up enough to take stock of her surroundings. The first thing she noticed was that it was small. There was a bed, a fancy desk, and a little closet. It was all obviously expensive, but also highly practical.

It told her a lot about the kind of people she was dealing with. They had money, they only dealt with the best, and they knew how to get the most of what they had. Not people to be messed with. And, she thought with a wry little smile that about maxed her emotional capacity for the moment, a taste for drama. The Illusive Man. Right.

Shepard picked herself up from the bed with a groan, and noticed she wasn't wearing her armor anymore. The sudden rush of blood to the head hurt too much to let her consider too closely how she'd gotten into running shorts and a loose-fitted T-shirt, her usual sleeping attire. Whoever had put her in them had known her pretty well. Well enough that she knew it would freak her out later, when she wasn't still a little unbalanced by the bigger issue of being dead. Or undead. Or whatever.

She did notice an odd logo on them though, some sort of orange shape, like two pentagons back to back. It looked familiar somehow... _Oh crap. Cerberus_. Just what she needed, a bunch of pro-human terrorists. Scratch that. A bunch of pro-human terrorists angry at her for blowing up so much of their stuff as a Spectre. Well, if she was stuck, she was stuck. _For now..._ Time to find out what was going on.

The hallway was narrow, as all hallways were in space. Little labeled signs marked the rooms she passed as restrooms, a gym, a cafeteria, and more living quarters, until she hit an intersection. She turned left as instructed and found herself at a dead end, the edge of the station. A viewport gave her a fantastic view of the stars. They were beautiful, but it only took a moment to recall the last time she'd looked up at them. She shuddered and took a step back.

To her right a doorway, painted to match the utilitarian gray walls, slid aside. The artificial voice from her quarters returned. "Please step inside."

Shepard walked inside and had just enough time to make out some sort of ring on the floor before the door silently slid closed behind her, cutting off the corridor's light. Her instincts told her to be wary, but they'd had her at their mercy for quite a while now. She gave a mental shrug and stepped forward. All around her little lights popped into being, each slowly rising from the floor. The effect was a little disorienting, but its purpose was clear. She was being scanned. Just as abruptly they deactivated, and she found herself surrounded by a projection of a gargantuan office. The backdrop view was stunning, a close up of a red giant simmering away in its preparations to go nova. It took Shepard a moment to notice the desk in front of her with such an awe-inspiring view behind.

"Commander Shepard."

The strong, cultured voice belong to the man sitting behind the real wooden desk. He was graying just a bit, though on him it looked good. The smudges of lighter color somehow worked with the artificial silver sheen of his eyes. His expensive business suit was mellowed by his relaxed, legs-crossed posture and the cigarette which sent its little cloud of smoke gently wafting away to the invisible ceiling. The ash tray at his left hand was flanked by an old-fashioned glass. He looked her up and down critically, as if analyzing a piece of equipment.

Shepard crossed her arms. "Illusive Man. I thought we'd be meeting face to face."

The Illusive Man took a moment to flick some of the ashes from the tip of his cigarette. "A necessary precaution. Not unusual for people who know what you and I know."

Shepard's eyes narrowed in irritation. All this enigmatic crap was doing her headache know good at all. Better to just talk openly.

"And what is it, exactly, that we know?"

The Illusive Man looked pleased. "We know that the Reapers are still out there, are still a threat. How are you feeling?"

So that was it. The Reapers. They were up to something, inevitably awful, and she had to stop it. Again. Couldn't they let a woman die in peace? The Illusive Man looked almost excited. All Shepard wanted to do was lie down again. Still. She sighed quietly and closed her eyes. It wasn't like anybody else was going to do anything.

Nobody had believed a word of it when she was alive, how would they react if she came back from the dead to bug the council or the human Alliance about it? The fact that she was currently talking with one of the most wanted terrorists in the galaxy with no guns involved would win her no points. That left, as always, her.

She brought her mind back to the question at hand. If the Illusive Man was behind those two years of surgery, and there was little doubt that he was, that meant he could probably tell _her_ how _she_ was feeling, every little ache and pain, and why it hurt. He was trying to manipulate her again. She didn't _really _ want to know, but there was no point in delaying the inevitable...

"Cut to the chase. What have they been doing that made you bring me back?"

The Illusive Man re-settled himself into his chair. His voice was light, businesslike, but the move was a classic – he was trying to make himself more comfortable, which meant he _wasn't_ comfortable talking about this stuff, as much as he had invested in his belief in it. In layman's terms, the Reapers scared him. Good to know.

"We're at war. Nobody wants to admit it yet, but humanity is under attack. Human colonies have been vanishing across the galaxy without a trace. While you've been sleeping, entire colonies have been disappearing. Human colonies. We believe it's someone working for the Reapers, just as Saren and the Geth aided Sovereign. You've seen it yourself. You've bested all of them. That's just one reason we chose you."

Ok. A known terrorist organization deciding to save all of humanity. In the open. Right. Shepard crossed her arms and slouched a little more, already tired of the posturing.

"Fighting a war doesn't seem like Cerberus. Why are you involved?"

The Illusive Man rose from his chair and stepped towards her. He stood up straight and stared directly at her projected image with his glowing silver eyes. When he spoke it sounded like a well-rehearsed speech.

"We're committed to the advancement and preservation of humanity. If the Reapers are targeting us, trying to wipe us out, Cerberus will stop them. If we wait for politicians or the Alliance to act, no more human colonies will be left."

"If you're willing to come out into the open to fight, then surely you're willing to come out and give your information to the Alliance?"

The Illusive Man's eyes narrowed. "There wouldn't be much point. They suffered substantial losses fighting sovereign. They're rebuilding, stretched too thin to waste resources verifying the Reaper threat, particularly when they wouldn't believe a word we told them. Blaming the abductions on mercs and pirates is easier. And more convenient." A ghost of a smile spread across his lips. "You can almost see their budget increase every time a colony goes dark. Why stop it?"

So much for the easy way out. Not that she'd expected much from the Alliance. She didn't even consider the Council. Shepard looked up for a moment and sighed. It was starting again. Another big mission, another bunch of friends, more deaths. Always more deaths and more killing. After a moment she brought her gaze back down to the Illusive Man, who stood patiently waiting for her to refocus.

"Alright, I'll bite. Sovereign was trying to harvest all life in the universe. Why would the Reapers target a few human colonies?"

To his credit, the Illusive Man kept any sign of gloating from showing. He had to know he had her now. Again, he'd gotten under her skin. Damn. "Hundreds of thousands of colonists have vanished. I'd say that fits the definition of 'harvesting.'" He turned his back on her to look out over the Red Giant. "Nobody's paying attention because it's random and the attacks occur in remote locations. I don't know why they've suddenly targeted humanity." He glanced at her over his shoulder. "Maybe you got their attention when you killed one of them."

"Alright, if what you say is true... if the Reapers really are behind this... I'd _consider_ helping you." All the qualifiers sounded flimsy even in her ears. The Illusive Man couldn't hold back the smile this time.

"I'd be disappointed if you accepted any of this without seeing for yourself. I have a shuttle waiting to take you to Freedom's Progress, the latest human colony to be abducted." Gracious, even in victory. Shepard did have to admire him, just a tiny bit, for the way he'd maneuvered her. Throw out a reference to her old enemies, the Reapers, then prey on her need to understand what was happening around her. Not that that interrupted her anger at him. "Miranda and Jacob will brief you."

Wait, work with his thugs? "Miranda killed Wilson in cold blood, and J... the other's just a gun for hire. You expect me to trust them? I had a good team, a team that trusted each other. Let me get them and we'll get results a lot faster."

He stalled by taking a long swallow from the glass at his side. "Wilson was one of my best agents. But he was a traitor." He brought his hand to his temple, as if warding off a headache. "Miranda did exactly what I expected of her. And she saved your life in more ways than one. Jacob's a soldier. One of the best. He's never fully trusted me, but he's always been honest about it. You'll be just fine with them... for now." He paused to take a long drag on his cigarette. As for your last team... That was two years ago Commander. Most of them have moved on, or their allegiances have changed."

Shepard opened her mouth to disagree, but the Illusive Man cut her off, this time with a look of mild irritation. "Alright, Shepard, I'll give you the rundown. Kaiden Alenko is still with the Alliance. Promoted, I believe. His file is surprisingly well classified, and he's undercover somewhere at the moment. Urdnot Wrex returned to Tuchanka and hasn't gone off-world in over a year. He's trying to unite the krogan clans. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya is back with the Migrant Fleet, but is off the grid on some sort of mission. And as for Liara T'Soni, my sources say she's on Illium working for the Shadow Broker. If so, she can't be trusted."

"...What about Garrus Vakarian?"

The Illusive Man closed his eyes for a moment, retaining his temper. "The turian disappeared a few months after you were declared dead. Even we haven't been able to locate him."

"OK I get it. They're not available." Still, she couldn't resist a parting shot. "Is this a volunteer job, or am I being volunteered?"

"You always have a choice, Shepard. If you don't find the evidence we're both looking for, we can part ways. But first, go to Freedom's Progress. Find any clues you can. Who's abducting the colonists? Do they have any connection with the Reapers? I brought you back. It's up to you to do the rest."

Right, like he'd let how many billion credits walk out the door? Not likely. Before she could throw out a snide remark he reached out and cut the connection. Abruptly she was back in the darkened room, the scanners dropping back into the floor. The door slid open and she stepped back out into the hallway. A series of tiny blue lights illuminated, making a line down the far corridor. It didn't take a genius to figure out their purpose.

The little lines of lights led her to the stations armory. Workbenches lay spread out neatly across the length of the room, each supporting its own supply of weapons and armor. Hers, the only N7 armor in the room, was along the back wall. The suit was a technological marvel. The innermost layer of the armor was actually a completely separate black catsuit complete with limited temperature control to allow for fighting in most hostile environments. It was wonderful in combat, but not particularly easy to get into despite lots of practice.

She unzipped the back as far as it would go, pulled off her shirt and shorts, and climbed in. An uncomfortable minute later she considered the rest of her armor. The armor itself had multiple layers as well. The inner layer consisted of a thick weave of fabric armor and kinetic padding which functioned as both a thicker version of her catsuit and a frame upon which to mount the outer layer of thick plates of ablative ceramic and kinetic barriers.

The barriers were the first line of defense, a system of shields designed to stop anything coming at her dangerously fast, attuned to the hypervelocities of mass-effect weapons. They were vulnerable to slower attacks, however, particularly close-quarter weapons. Having a personal shield wasn't particularly helpful when you had a knife in your stomach. That was where the hardened ceramic came in, though it helped with projectiles as well, of course.

She pulled on the greaves and stomped to get her feet all the way into the heavy boots. Next came the chest plate made of thick interlocking plates. She closed the primary and secondary catches which automatically started the power-up process. Next came the gauntlets which slid up her arms. She was careful to ensure that the gap for her elbows was exactly in place to allow her maximum flexibility. The gauntlets were marked with the traditional N7 red on white slash down the right arm.

Next came the shoulder pauldrons, curved shells of more ablative ceramic over kinetic padding, which hooked into the chest plate. Finally she picked up her breather helmet. Designed for spacewalks, or combat in atmosphere incapacitating to humans, the full helmet sealed seamlessly with the inner layer of heavy fabric armor on her neck. In addition, the hardsuit helmet came standard with a suite of communication, navigation, and battlefield awareness software which would serve as both a heads-up display and access point to liaise with computer systems outside their own network.

What the manuals didn't tell you was that they were very, very stuffy. She wouldn't put it on until she had to.

Now that her defenses were in order, it was time for some offense. She turned from her workbench and considered the weapons. Despite the impressive number of weapons, there was a distinct lack of variety.

_ Huh. Even terrorists buy in bulk._

She reclaimed her M-3 Predator and placed it on the clip on her right hip. The next table held several submachine pistols. Shepard picked one up and examined it. In appearance it was quite similar to the Predator, but this, the M-4 Shuriken Machine-pistol, the basic Elkoss Combine model, fired three-shot bursts fast enough make a continuous stream if you were quick. That she placed on her other hip.

Another table over and there were assault rifles. By far the best model available was the M-8 Avenger, another Elkoss Combine creation. The venerable old rifle still sported the arced look she was familiar with. She set it back down—while the rifle's efficacy was undeniable, it was also one of the loudest weapons she'd ever used. Long range wasn't her style, and you could only carry so many weapons. The next table over held the M-23 Katana shotgun by Ariake Technologies. Shotguns were about as self-explanatory as a weapon got. Get in close and unleash as many pellets as possible. Another keeper.

The final table before the door labeled "Ready Room" held the big guns. In this case, the ML-77 Missile Launcher by Armax Arsenal and the M-100 Grenade Launcher by Elanus Risk Control. Both weapons were semi-automatic thanks to multiple launch tubes on the frame for the missile launcher and a top-mounted barrel magazine for the grenade launcher. The ML-77 had a bigger magazine, while the M-100 had more kick per round. She thought about it for a moment—if she had to bust out this weapon, then she was up close and personal, and in serious trouble. The grenade launcher it is.

The weapon, just like all modern weapons, automatically folded in on themselves once you took your hand off the grip to allow for easier transportation. They attached quite nicely to the magnetic clamp on the back of her armor. All in all, it added significantly to the weight she was hauling around.

Shepard took a moment to look back over the armory. It was like so many others she'd been in on so many plants, ships, and space stations. It seemed like this was all her life now, killing people. And, recently, being killed.

Was it really that bad? She tried to think back to the last time she'd done something most people would consider "normal."

She'd gone to a tourist destination on Eden Prime on a simple "give me" retrieval assignment... and been assaulted by Geth, had her nominal Spectre superior get killed and seen a vision of an extinct race. Hmmm. She'd gone to that bar on the Citadel...what was it, Chora's Den?... and gotten into a massive firefight which left half the bar in shambles and bodies all over the place. If they hadn't made her a Spectre for it and thus untouchable, there was no telling how long it would have taken to get through _that_ mountain of paperwork. She'd gone to do a simple fact-checking mission on Feros . . . and discovered and saved the last surviving queen of the Rachni, an alien race which had been manipulated by the Reapers to fight civilization to a standstill.

She'd dropped nukes, killed countless and saved countless more, destroyed a Reaper bent on galactic destruction, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd gone out for a night on the town with friends. She didn't even remember the last time she'd _had_ friends. There were some definite downsides to her chosen career path. Still, it was better than the streets. There was always that.

She gave herself a little shake, stretched her right arm for the umpteeth time (her shoulder still didn't feel quite right) and headed for the ready room. It was empty, so she marched straight on through to the flight hangar and saw Jacob already inside and ready to go. The shuttle was a little different from what Shepard was used to, and she took the time to study it as she walked over to the open cabin.

The body of the thing looked almost like a very old helicopter with separate open-walled cabin and sealed pilot's compartment. Without anything as crude as rotors, of course. In their place were two sets of linked thrusters, one on the front facing forwards, and one on the rear. Together they rotated to allow for steering. The lift was provided by a small thruster in the bottom of the craft. The real workhorse, as with most things these days, was a mass effect field.

She stepped inside and sat opposite her... companions... for the short flight. Jacob looked up from his glowing omni-tool at her approach, evidently not surprised to see her there. "I'm glad the Illusive Man convinced you to join us Commander."

Shepard sat on the hard seat with a groan. She never got to ride on the soft civilian models. "I just want to find out what happened to those colonists. I still don't trust Cerberus."

"Noted." He tilted his head slightly to the side, debating. "Do you trust me, Commander?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet."

He nodded. "At least you're giving me a chance. That's more than most former Alliance soldiers would do."

Well, now she was backed into a corner. She hadn't decided because she hadn't cared enough to think about it. Now, just to keep him from thinking she thought he was worthless, she'd actually have to try and figure him out. Great. She didn't let _that_ particular train of thought show on her face, however.

"You said you served in the Alliance?" A good start; most people couldn't shut up about their adventures, trying to impress another soldier.

"Five years in total. Stationed all over the galaxy. Even spent a couple of years as a corsair."

Shepard smiled. Worked every time. "I've never heard of the corsairs."

"It was an Alliance initiative. They hired independent starship captains and used them for missions that fell outside Alliance jurisdiction. Technically we weren't part of the Alliance. If we ever got caught, they could disavow any knowledge of us. We were _supposed_ to be free from restrictions and rules, but there was still enough red tape to sink a cruiser. I finally just gave up."

Well, if that was true at least he should know what he was doing. "So how did a Black Ops alliance operative end up with Cerberus?"

Jacob leaned forward on his seat, elbows on his knees. "I guess I just got tired of never making a difference." He stared intently into space as he talked, taking the question seriously. "So much of what we did in the Alliance seemed pointless. I thought things would change after the attack on the Citadel. Humanity was finally invited to join the Council, but nothing changed. Politics, bureaucracy. Same bullshit, different leaders. Cerberus is different." And there was definitely something in his voice now. Pride? Passion?

"When colonies go missing, we don't commission a team to write a report to figure out what the hell to do about it. We just go and find out."

"Speaking of which, do you know anything about this colony we're going to?"

"It's called Freedom's Progress. Don't know much else about it." He shrugged. "Miranda's going to brief us on the way in."

And that effectively ended that conversation. Shepard leaned back and waited for Miranda's arrival. She didn't wait long. A few moments later Miranda strode into view. She was even more stunning than Shepard remembered, and Shepard tried hard not shrivel a little. Shepard, the old Shepard, had been had been attractive, certainly. But she had nothing on Miranda.

While Jacob remained in his armor from the Lazarus Project, Miranda had changed that ridiculous catsuit for more practical armor. It was almost as form-fitting as before, but at least there were armored plates over her black base armor to protect her instead of relying entirely on a shield. She didn't have a helmet, but rather a glowing orange ribbon across her eyes which served as both a heads-up display and targeting system for her omni-tool.

She glanced at Shepard then sat by Jacob. No girls-in-a-guys-world instant friendship there. Without preamble she jumped straight into the briefing while the pilot, with no command Shepard could see, lifted them off and rocketed them out into space.

"The colony on Freedom's Progress is a typical human settlement in the Terminus Systems. As of the last census in 2183 it held a population of 912,810 people. They had a small military force consisting of a handful of marines, supplemented by mechs and security drones. The planet itself has a near-earth orbit which results in mild seasonal shifts over a slightly longer year of 382 days. It was seeded with a variety of earth flora and fauna."

She paused and glanced at the small projection of the planet emerging from her omnitool. Her voice sounded softer. "Average in almost every way, really. Completely unremarkable... until the disappearance." She shook her head slightly and her tone became businesslike again.

"The colony itself lies a few dozen kilometers from a medium sized lake which provides their water source on the largest continent, here," she pointed. After touching that section of the projection it zoomed way in to an overview of the colony itself.

"The plan is to land here, on the outskirts, and proceed into the heart of the colony. Most of the population lived on the outskirts in large farming groups, but here is where the defense force was located and most of the industrial capacity. If there is any sign of them, it will most likely be where those marines made their stand." With that, she shut down her omnitool, sat back, and proceeded to look at the floor.

The next twenty minutes were rather uncomfortable. They all sat patiently on their hard benches, nobody speaking or looking at each other. Shepard was pretty sure they didn't know what to make of her, but that didn't explain why they were so cold with each other.

Eventually Jacob fell asleep.

Miranda glanced over at him. "Huh, the typical soldier. Sleeping whenever he can."

_I guess it's officially ok to talk again._

Miranda shook her head and glanced at Shepard. "The Illusive Man is very impressed with you. I'm eager to see if you can live up to his expectations."

Impressed? Maybe she was trying to make up for ignoring them all the whole flight. Or maybe she was trying to take control of the conversation, of their relationship, to influence the mission. That wouldn't do. Or maybe Shepard was paranoid. She didn't care about Cerberus, or much else at the moment, to be frank, but she was on this mission and it was _her_ mission. Best to be clear on that form the very beginning. "Look, Miranda, I can't have anyone disobeying my commands when we get there."

Miranda's eyes turned hard. "I know who I report to. As long as you don't do anything to betray Cerberus, I'll follow your orders." Better than nothing.

"Look, Miranda, we have to work together if we want to succeed. This attitude of yours isn't helping anything."

"You look, Shepard. I have the utmost respect for your abilities. It's your motivations that concern me. I believe in what Cerberus stands for. Only time will tell if you prove to be an asset or liability to our cause."

Touchy, touchy. Still, even this beat sitting in silence. Let's try a different topic. "Fine. You already know everything about me. Why don't you tell me a little about yourself?"

Miranda, of course, went on the defensive. "Worried about my qualifications? I can crush a mech with my biotics or shoot its head off at 100 yards. Take your pick."

Shepard narrowed her eyes in irritation. Not so much at Miranda as at her defensiveness. Old habits were starting to reassert themselves—she needed to understand what made people tick, or she couldn't control the situation. If you couldn't control the situation, you died. She'd thought, briefly, that leaving the streets had left that particular truth behind. The Blitz had taught her differently. Well, what about that coldness between her and Jacob?

"Did you and Jacob train together in the Alliance?"

"No, the Illusive Man recognized my potential and recruited me at a young age."

"How old were you?" _Look, we're having a normal conversation!_

"Old enough to know this was what I wanted."

And then she had to go and do that. Great. Ok, no personal life. Work, maybe? She seemed like she could be the workaholic type.

"Alright, alright. What about the Lazarus Project? I'd like to hear about it from the person in charge."

Miranda crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat, though somehow kept her posture perfect. "I wasn't in charge. The Illusive Man was. If I was running the show, I'd have done a few things differently."

"What would you have changed?"

"To start, I would have implanted you with some kind of control chip. But the Illusive Man wouldn't allow it." She grimaced, and the exaggeratedly slow, light tone just dripped mockery. "He was afraid it might affect your personality—alter your character somehow. He wouldn't let us do anything that might limit your potential in any way."

Well, wasn't that a thought. A control chip she could fight, however ineffectively. The Illusive Man knew her too well for that; he'd manipulated her instead. Got her to decide to do it herself, which meant she couldn't fight, couldn't resist. Willing, if hesitant, obedience was far better than angry forced compliance every time. Miranda didn't know her nearly as well as she thought, for all her effort in putting Shepard back together.

"The Illusive man is taking an incredible risk with you. I just hope his gamble pays off."

Shepard opened her mouth to respond, but Miranda didn't give her the chance. "I know what you're trying to do Shepard. I'm not looking for a friend. Stay focused on the mission."

Well, things were off to a good start.


	4. The Famliar Din

Chapter 4: The Familiar Din

The jolt of reentry woke her up. A quick glance reassured her that she was still on the shuttle, still with Miranda and Jacob. She didn't remember falling asleep.

"We're 2 minutes out, Commander." That was Miranda, her tone a little warmer this time. "The Illusive Man put us under your command. Do you have any orders?" Perhaps trying to make up for being so withdrawn? Or proving that she could make this partnership work, whatever her feelings?

"Our first priority is searching for survivors."

"No offense commander," Miranda returned in about as an offensive tone as she could manage, "but I find that unlikely."

Shepard just rolled her eyes. "I got that. But a survivor would be able to give us a full description of what happened down there. And she would be able to describe this _to the Alliance_ so we can get some more support." _And get me out of here..._

Jacob chimed in, trying to keep the peace. "Understood, Commander."

They waited in silence as the shuttle made the final descent to the colony itself. Finally it set down, thrusters flaring, and the gull wing shuttle doors flipped opened. They stepped out, weapons at the ready, though they weren't surprised to see nothing moving. No one had been left behind before.

They waited for the shuttle to lift off again before moving out. Its flood lights illuminated everything nearby, but also made the more distant shadows a lot deeper, and she wanted a clear view before moving ahead. With no immediate danger, and a few moments to wait until the shuttle was clear, she allowed herself to really take in her surroundings.

It was beautiful, that much was apparent. Not in the green, harsh way that Eden Prime was beautiful, but in a softer sense. It was winter, though it was hard to feel through the layers of combat armor which were gently heating her, keeping her body temperature up. The sky was clear behind them, but a slew of dark clouds in the distance were closing in, making the approaching nightfall seem even closer than it was. Snow was falling, though just a few flakes for the moment. Not far from her position was a series of prefabricated structures, blocky gray things mass-produced and dropped onto worlds to house the first colonizers.

Nothing else popped up. "Alright, let's move." Shepard took point, her Predator leading the way, while Jacob took center with his Katana shotgun and Miranda covered the rear with her own pistol. The first prefab door's motion sensors activated as Shepard stepped close, sliding the thin door aside. The automatic lights blinked on. No danger. They poked around, though Shepard didn't have high hopes. Jacob looked through stacks of paper on the round dinner table, while Miranda stepped outside to look at the buildings exterior. Shepard looked out through the window over the grounds for incoming threats.

Jacob tossed the papers down. Nothing. "Looks like they just got up and left in the middle of dinner," he muttered, gesturing to the plates of re-hydrated vegetables spread across the table. About as nondescript as it got. The rest of the room proved just as useless. A moment later and Jacob and Shepard were outside in the road again. Miranda stepped around the buildings corner to rejoin them, her boots leaving faint prints in the snow as it started to stick. Her high-heeled boots. Unbelievable. Shepard decided now was not the best time to point them out. Fortunately Miranda hadn't seemed to notice her attention.

"Strange. No bodies. No structural damage. No signs of battle."

Shepard shrugged, and they pressed onwards. The next few houses proved just as empty, of both peoples and clues. It was as if they simply walked away from whatever they were doing. "Alright, that's enough. Let's head for the city center." The prefab structures were built in a ring of sorts around the main walled compound of the heart of the colony. Theoretically the walls were to keep out wild animals, but they saw far more frequent use out here keeping out the sentient animals looking for slaves. The scum of the lawless Terminus Systems, out here beyond Council space, were far more dangerous than any animals she'd ever run across. A brisk walk soon saw them at one of the gated entrances to the main colony. "Again," muttered Miranda, "no damage." Shepard reached out and activated the door, which slowly started to grind open.

"Hostiles detected."

The tinny, automated voice emerged from within the the compound. At once Shepard and company dove to either side of the doorway and readied their weapons as a hail of fire poured through the doors. Shepard sneaked a peak. A balcony directly across from them served as a sort of snipers nest for several Loki mechs, and a path on the right provided access for more. There were even a handful of Fenris mechs. Those were bad news. The Lokis were capable of basic combat, but when it came to crowd suppression they were hopelessly inadequate.

Fenris models were much lower to the ground and on four limbs, which allowed them to be both much faster and much harder to hit. Their main attack, once unleashed, was to charge up close and release a concentrated burst of energy, which would incapacitate a normal human, and easily take down the shields of armored soldiers.

"Miranda, covering fire, Jacob get up there behind cover and hold off those Fenris!" Even as she shouted orders Shepard exchanged her Predator for her Tempest submachine pistol. She and Miranda together peeked out from behind their cover and sprayed fire, more interested in volume than accuracy. Still, Miranda's fire managed to take out a mech while Shepard's scraped the paint off several more, making them a bit more cautious.

Jacob burst from cover and charged forward. Occasional incoming fire pinged off his shields, but thanks to the covering fire he was able to slide safely behind a large crate in a forward position. Shepard's and Miranda kept up the pressure on the mechs. Whenever she had the opportunity Shepard would yank a mech up into the air with her biotics. It would drift there, helpless, until the mass effect field she'd generated faded out and dropped the mech down a story to the hard ground below. Miranda, meanwhile, was in her element. Just as she'd said, she was deadly accurate with her pistol, and her biotics were indeed formidable. They tore the mechs apart at range, and whenever a Fenris would get close she'd hear the hammer of Jacob's Katana signal the threats demise.

Once the carnage was over they regrouped. Jacob continued to glance around suspiciously. "Those mechs shouldn't have been hostile. They should have recognized us as human." Miranda, not to be outdone, chimed in as well. "Someone reprogrammed them to attack on sight." She glanced out among the darkened buildings. "We're not alone here." In the end, though, it didn't change their mission. They pressed onwards.

Several more abandoned buildings later, there was a change. The next prefab structure was not silent. Voices, distorted through the walls, seeped out to them. Shepard pointed to either side of the door. "Wait for my signal before you fire," she whispered. Then, as one, they charged through the door.

Those inside were taken completely off guard, though it didn't take them long to react. They had their M-8's up and aimed in the blink of an eye.

"Stop right there!"

Shepard paused, forcing Miranda and Jacob behind her to stop as well. As ordered, they held their fire.

_ At least something has gone right so far._

They were quarians, an ancient race of aliens currently outcast from Citadel Space for creating the geth, an AI network which had rebelled against them and supplanted the quarians from their home planet. They were also humanoid, and covered in full-body gray armor it was difficult to make out any obvious differences between them and humans. A few moments of observation revealed a few things, however. For starters, they had only two toes, each longer and thicker than human toes, which they balanced on. Their hands, too, were different. Instead of five digits they had only three, again each larger, and stronger than a normal human finger.

From the back came a strong, young feminine voice. "Prazza! You said you'd let me handles this." Another quarian burst through their line and grabbed assault rifles, pointing them towards the sky. She turned and towards the trio and held out her hands placatingly, only to freeze in place. "Wait... Shepard?" Her voice went from commanding to shocked in a heartbeat.

The first quarian cut back in. "I'm not taking any chances with Cerberus operatives." The female, who definitely seemed familiar, angrily glanced over at the marine. "Put those weapons down!" He submitted, and she turned her attention back towards Shepard. "Shepard... is that... you?"

In that moment it came to her, and her eyes lit up for a moment, just as they used to. "Tali!" The quarian Shepard had picked up on the Citadel, the one that had provided the key evidence to get the Council to make her the first human Spectre, the friend who'd stuck up for her and kept the Normandy SR-1 flying: Tali nar Rayya. Well now, how exactly would she explain this?

"Cerberus rebuilt me Tali. In exchange they asked me to investigate these attacks on human colonies."

Prazza, the marine, didn't know when to stay down. "You'll pardon us for not taking you at your word, Cerberus."

Miranda had had enough. "We're _well_ within our rights to investigate an attack on a human colony. I'd like to know what the quarians are doing here."

_Wait, terrorists groups have rights?_

Tali sighed, but obliged her. "One of our people was here on Pilgrimage, our right of passage to adulthood. His name was Veetor. We came to find him."

That got Shepard's attention; he might have evidence. The sooner they got it, the sooner she could get this mission done, and the sooner she could... do something. Something that wasn't this.

"If Veetor survived the attack, he might be able to tell us what happened."

Tali didn't sound optimistic. "That's... the hope. We've seen him, but he might not be in the best state to answer questions. He was injured and... ah... nervous-"

Prazza jumped in again. The man just did not shut up. At least he laid it out bluntly. "She means he was unstable. Combine that with the damage to his suits CO2 scrubbers and an infection from open-air exposure and he's likely delirious."

Ah yes, the quarians had terrible immune systems. Something about living for generations on sterile ships. Tali jumped in to finish Prazza's thoughts. "When he saw us landing, he hid in a warehouse on the far side of town. We suspect he also reprogrammed the mechs to attack anything that moved."

Shepard managed to get a word in this time. "Veetor's the only who can tell us what happened here. We should work together to find him."

Tali nodded her head contemplative, while Prazza shook with fury. "Good idea. You'll need two teams to get past the drones anyways."

"What? Now we're working with Cerberus?"

"No Prazza, you're working for me! If you can't follow orders, go wait on the ship!"

Once Prazza backed away muttering they got down to the planning, Shepard with more enthusiasm than she'd had for anything else since waking up. It was quickly decided that Tali and the Quarians would circle around to draw off as many of the mechs as they could to allow Shepard and her crew to make their way to the compounds center. All decided, they split up.

The plan lasted all of ten seconds.

Just outside a whole slew of combat drones launched themselves onto the roofs of the surrounding buildings. The trio piled back inside and got as low as they could as the first rockets came down on them. The whole building shook with the impact, and a good portion of the walls shredded immediately. Dust, pulverized concrete, and shattered steel choked the air. "Miranda, can you overload their shields?"

"Can do Commander."

Jacob and Shepard took turns firing out of the holes the first barrage of rockets left in the walls, trying to keep the drones busy while Miranda huddled further in the dark, her face lit up by the orange glow of her omni-tool. She worked feverishly, trying to hack into the drones wireless guidance network to overload their shields.

"Incoming!" That was Jacob, and both he and Shepard dove further into the building. Shepard slid farther than she intended, her path greased by debris, and ended with her head in Miranda's lap. She looked down in surprise. Shepard couldn't resist. "Just checking up on you Miranda. Any progress?" She felt almost like her old self again.

"A... almost done Commander."

Shepard returned to the fight.

The wall was almost gone. Only the main steel girders were left. She peeked her head out whenever her shields reached full strength and peppered one of the drones with fire, only to see their shields reflect her projectiles harmlessly away. She pulling on them with her biotics, but the shields managed to reflect the worst of the pull. It wobbled, but settled back onto its tripod legs. _Any time now, Miranda_. The drones prepared another round of rockets.

"Got it!"

Instantly Jacob and Shepard were firing as fast as they could. The drone went down quickly without their shields, but they weren't going to get them all in time, and...

Jacob dove back inside, but Shepard stayed, firing. She had just realized that death wasn't that unappealing of an option. No more pressure, no more problems... And she could do it saving her allies' lives. Not a bad way to go out. No blame, right?

Then, she got unreasonably unlucky. The first drone fired, directly at her, while she fired directly at it. From the spray of sand-sized pellets only just shaved off the ammunition block in her machine-pistol, one of the shards of molten metal actually impacted with the explosive tip of the rocket, detonating it in a massive fireball. The explosion enveloped the other drones and set them off in a chain reaction. When the smoke cleared, none remained.

"Dang, Shepard. Nice shot!" Jacob clambered to his feet, then offered a helping hand to Miranda, who looked irritated. "Weren't the quarians supposed to draw this lot off?"

As if in answer, their coms frequency came to life. "Shepard! Prazza and his squad went on ahead! I told them to wait, but they wouldn't listen. They want to find Veetor and take him away before you get here."

Miranda grimaced. "We should have expected this."

Jacob, practical as ever, skipped right to the important bit. "Come on, we can still catch them."

They launched into action. The trio ran forward relentlessly, dashing over planters, leaping picnic tables, and barging through doors. A few more mechs tried to engage them, but the three biotics tossed them aside and rushed past before they could regain their feet. A few minutes later they arrived, winded, at the far side of the compound. "Hurry," Tali put in again. "Veetor's in the loading dock, but he reprogrammed a heavy mech and it's tearing Prazza's squad apart!" Jacob shook his head.

"Great. A heavy mech. That thing has heavy armor on it; the quarians never stood a chance."

The loading dock doors slid open in front of them to reveal the quarians, those that were left of them, fleeing from the hulking heavy mech. It was a beast. Based on the Loki model, the heavy was bigger and badder in every way. Its limbs, instead of undersized, were oversized to provide greater protection and stability which in turn allowed for a more powerful generator inside. All that power let the designers place a weapon in each hand; a heavy machine gun in the right and a rocket launcher in the left.

Their defenses were on the same level. Beneath a strong shield generator sat the heavy armor plating Jacob had mentioned. And once you were through that, you still had to get into the electronics enough to fry something important. Destroying them outright was almost impossible, and they were valuable enough that the designers included a self-destruct so people would have to by new ones instead of endlessly repairing the old.

"Miranda, Jacob and I will buy you some time to overload the shields. Jacob, once we get in give me some cover while I get in position, then get back here and guard Miranda. If she can't get those shields down, we're dead."

They acknowledged and jumped into action. Shepard didn't look back to watch Miranda get to work on her omnitool, but charged forwards towards the mech. They made it to cover unmolested; mech was busy finishing off most of the quarian team. Shepard cut left and Jacob opened up with his shotgun to get the things attention. While the mech slowly circled towards Jacob, Shepard slipped her machine pistol back onto her hip, pulled off the grenade launcher, and waited. The mech made its way methodically towards Jacob's position, which seemed more and more exposed by the second. At last, Miranda gave her signal and Shepard opened up.

It took more than she was expecting to bring it down. She hammered the mech with 5 high-explosive grenades before she really hit something critical. The mech slumped forward, dead, while the super-heated barrel of its heavy machine gun cooled from red hot to a more normal shade. For being dead, though, it sure was lighting up with a lot of... "Jacob get clear! It's going to blow!"

Shepard dropped the grenade launcher covered here eyes, shying away from the suddenly very hot air. Tiny shards of smoking debris pinged off her armor as the blast wave hit her. Her shield took the worst of it, however, and she managed to stay on her feet.

Jacob was not so lucky.

His shield had given out much more quickly being closer to the blast, and flaming shrapnel had bombarded him across his back and legs as he dove away. "Jacob, are you all right? Jacob?" Though not overly worried about the Cerberus man, he _was_ one of the only allies she had.

Miranda, however, seemed close to panic. At least, as close to panic as Shepard ever expected to see her. "Jacob, can you hear me? Say something Jacob!"

Shepard joined her hunched over the big former marine and together they gauged the extent of his injuries. He was bleeding in multiple places, but it seemed mostly superficial. The sheer concussive force seemed to have knocked him out, was all. Not that anyone that had ever that could really brush it off as "all" it was.

She glanced at Miranda who had apparently made the same diagnosis. Her voice certainly went back to the same controlled tone she usually used. "Jacob it's not that bad, now get up." Even as she spoke Jacob groaned and opened his eyes. Shepard watched, practically reading his thoughts, as he went through the mental checklist all soldiers go through when they take a hit. Can you move your legs? Can you move your hands? Then everything was there and nothing paralyzed. "I'm good to go Commander." He climbed to his feet, though a lot more gingerly than before.

"Alright, let's go find this quarian." Despite Jacob's wounds she felt light, almost bubbly, as she walked into the loading dock. The afterglow of seeing a friend. Seeing no danger in the room Miranda hung back with Jacob and broke open her supply of medigel, leaving her to deal with Veetor. "Alright Jacob, hold still."

Veetor sat babbling away, apparently completely crazy, to the entire wall full of viewscreens in front of him and it didn't dent her sense of euphoria. A wave of her omnitool and the screens blanked, snapping the Quarian out of it. He jumped to his feet and whirled to see them.

"You're... not one of them? You're human. They... they didn't find you?"

"Who didn't find us?"

"The... the monsters. The swarms. They took everyone."

"Veetor, you're not making sense. What do you mean?"

This, apparently, got through to Veetor, who turned towards his monitors and started fiddling with the controls. "You didn't know," he muttered to himself. "You didn't see."

Abruptly the display screened crystalized into a camera view panning slowly back and forth from a vantage point at last two stories high. A security feed. The screen was full of monsters. "What _is_ that thing?"

Veetor was back in his own little world again, but Miranda stepped over and picked up the slack. "I think that's a collector."

"Is that some sort of alien?"

Jacob, freshly patched up, joined them looking up at the viewscreen. "They're a species from somewhere beyond the Omega 4 relay. Only a few people have ever seen one in person. The usually work through intermediaries like slavers or mercenaries. If they're involved with the reapers somehow it could explain what happened to the colonists."

Miranda, refusing to be outdone, jumped back in. "The collectors have advanced technology. They could have a weapon that disables an entire colony at once."

Veetor, though it wasn't certain he'd heard any of their conversation, broke in again. "The Seeker swarms. No one can hide. The seekers find you. Freeze you. Then the monsters take you away.

Shepard eyed him curiously. "And why didn't the seekers get you?"

"They didn't find me. Monsters didn't know I was here."

"That isn't the only explanation." Miranda was eying Veetor speculatively, though she addressed Shepard. "The Collectors aren't known for being careless. Perhaps his envirosuit protected him from their scans. Or perhaps they were using technology specifically designed to find humans. Only _human_ colonies have been hit, after all."

Veetor broke in again. "I scanned them with my omnitool. Lots of readings. Electromagnetic. Dark energy."

At this Miranda brightened. "We need to get this data back to the Illusive Man. Grab the quarian and call for the shuttle to pick us up."

"What?"

They turned to see Tali just entering from the back of the room. "He's injured, he needs treatment, not an interrogation!"

Shepard, however, felt her happiness buckle at the thought of parting from Tali again. "You don't have to just take him and go. You could come with us, treat him wherever we go. We could work together, just like old times." She tried hard to keep the pleading out of her voice, only mostly succeeding.

Tali sighed. "I'm still trying to accept that you're still alive. And that you're with Cerberus. I can't, Shepard. It's been a long time and I have my own responsibilities now, my own missions. I can't just drop everything and run off." She sounded pained. "Not even for you."

Out of the corner of her eye she could see Miranda roll her eyes.

Shepard glared at Miranda, which seemed to catch her off guard after Shepard's earlier ambivalence. "Veetor goes with Tali. Tali, could you please forward whatever you find to us?"

"Thanks Shepard. I'm glad to see you're still the one giving the orders."

Jacob, playing the peacemaker, called for pickup before Miranda could reply.


	5. Home Is Where the Heart Is

**Hello again everyone! Please review and give me some feedback so I can improve my writing. The more reviews you give me, the sooner you get an update! As ever, thanks to my fantastic beta-reader ShadesOfMauve.**

Chapter 5: Home Is Where The Heart Is

The Illusive Man was waiting for her on their return. Shepard paused before going in, trying unsuccessfully to gather her thoughts. The emotional high of seeing Tali again, of having a positive relationship with someone, led to a crushing low on her departure. The flight back on the cramped little drop shuttle was uncomfortable, to say the least. She had stared straight ahead the entire trip, silent. She just couldn't find the energy to say anything. The others must have felt the same, as they'd gone their separate ways as soon as they landed on the Cerberus-run space station.

She shook her head hopelessly and walked in to the com room.

"Shepard. Good work on Freedom's Progress. The quarians forwarded their findings from Veetor's debriefing. No new data, but it's a surprising olive branch, given our history. You and I have different methods, but I can't argue with your results."

He rambled on, talking business. No talk about how she felt, or anything but facts. He was trying to get her into the groove, into the mission. The backhanded compliment begged for a response, something to get her sucked into the conversation and back to work. And the sad thing was, it was working. She was just so tired, too tired to spend energy wading through his verbal barrages.

"You ever think about playing nice once in a while?"

He smiled. Victory. Again.

"Diplomacy is great when it works." As she'd just proved. "It's more difficult when everyone already perceives you as a threat. But more importantly, you confirmed that the collectors are behind the abductions." And just like that, back to business, back to important information only she was privy to. Back to things only she could do, so she must do. A suspicion gnawed at her. He'd said if she didn't find anything she could walk away, all based on finding this one bit of information...

"Why do I get the feeling that you knew about them already?"

"I had my suspicions, but I needed proof. The collectors are enigmatic, at best."

_And isn't that a mouthful of nothing._ "Needed proof." Right. The whole point of this little adventure was to act without having to find the proof it would take to get the Alliance involved. It was a masterful bit of bait-and-switch. Get her to run off to some colony hoping to find nothing, but already knowing there was something to find, which was the condition for her joining. So really she had been given two different options to join Cerberus. All that back-alley maneuvering made her head hurt, and her patience was already short as it was.

The Illusive Man, however, wasn't finished.

"They periodically travel to the Terminus Systems, looking to gather seemingly unimportant items or specimens. Usually in exchange for their technology. When their transactions are complete they disappear, usually as quickly as they arrived, back beyond the unmapped Omega 4 relay."

It didn't make sense, and her drive to understand pushed her onwards even when her instincts were crying to get out.

"But why would they target humans?" Shepard was filled with a sudden feeling of foreboding. Maybe, for once, not knowing was better...

"Obviously humans had a huge part in Sovereigns destruction. That might have been enough to draw their attention."

It was coming, almost here...

"There's another reason though. I don't know if the reapers feel fear, but you killed one of them. That will be enough to give them pause."

And there it was. A threat wrapped up in a mystery only she could solve. A dual assault on her sense of duty and curiosity. The one thing that might actually hold her here. _Damn._

"Alright, you win. Why is the Omega 4 relay unmapped?"

"Many have tried over the years. We only know that no ship passing through it has ever returned. Our best guess is that the relay reacts differently to collector vessels, allowing them safe passage. If they can manipulate relays, that's just further evidence of the connection with the reapers."

The Illusive Man made his last play, cutting off any chance of escape.

"Shepard, the Alliance and Council want to believe the reaper threat died with Sovereign. You and I know better. _I_ won't wait until the reapers are on the march. We need to take the fight to them."

Shepard covered her eyes with her left hand. She was trapped. Stuck leading people on this insane one-woman mission, and probably everyone would die. She would lead them to their deaths, get them killed. Again. If she was unreasonably lucky, they would beat the reapers. Or at least delay them again. And if she was extremely lucky, she'd die again in the process and never have to do anything like this again. Maybe she'd even stay dead this time.

She dropped her hand and gave the Illusive Man a hard stare. If she was going to do this, she'd do it right. It was who she was. "If this is a war, I'll need an army. Or," she amended, "a really good team."

The Illusive Man wasn't surprised. Was he ever? "I've already compiled a list of soldiers, scientists, and mercenaries. You'll get dossiers on the best of them. Finding them and convincing them to work with you could be challenging, but you're a natural leader. I'll continue to track the collectors. When they make their next appearance, I'll notify you and your team. Be ready."

He could have had the decency to pretend he hadn't worked out how this would go down all in advance. "You just worry about the collectors. I'll make sure the team's ready."

"Good. Two things before you go..."

And to rub some salt in the wound...

"First, head to Omega and find Mordin Solus. He's a brilliant salarian scientist. Our intelligence suggests he may know how to counter the Collector's paralyzing seeker swarms."

She bristled. "I'm not even started and you're already telling me what to do?" If only the suggestion wasn't so good...

The corner of his lip curled, just the tiniest bit, as another smile threatened. "I'm giving you direction. What you do with it is up to you. I'm sure you'll make the _right_ decision." And, because it made sense, she'd do it. Which would get her, if not used to it, at least a bit in the habit of doing what he said, following orders like a good little Cerberus agent. Could he actually form a sentence that didn't end up manipulating somebody?

"Alright, what's the other thing?"

"I've found a pilot you might like. I hear he's one of the best. Someone you can trust."

_Fat chance_. He cut the signal.

"Hey Commander! Just like old times, huh?" The distinctive masculine voice came from behind her, from the now-open doorway to the hallway. There was only one person that could be. She suddenly felt her heart in her throat as she spun around.

"I can't believe it's you Joker!" Her long-time pilot, the one who'd saved her life countless times chasing Saren, and sarcastic snot extraordinaire, Joker Moreau. The one and only.

He started walking, a miracle in itself considering his Vrolik's Syndrome, leading her through the corridors.

"Look who's talking! I saw you get spaced." Trust Joker to be able to joke about that.

"I got lucky." He didn't notice the half-second delay between the last words. "With a lot of strings attached." _That_ was an understatement. "How'd you get here?"

"It all fell apart without you commander. Everything you stirred up, the council just wanted it gone. Team was all broken up, records sealed, and I was grounded. The alliance took away the one thing that mattered to me. Hell yeah I joined Cerberus."

His enthusiasm seemed a bit forced, however.

She wondered if he'd been conned into it like she had. "You really trust the Illusive man?" He dodged the question, though to be fair it was a little more personal than it seemed on the face of it.

"I don't trust anyone who makes more than I do. But they aren't all bad. Saved your life. Let me fly. And there's this." They'd stopped, though she hardly noticed her attention was so focused on Joker. He gestured out the massive viewscreen. "They only told me last night." Eagerness, barely contained, filled his voice.

The massive space before them was dark, but at one end a set of lights was activateds. They turned on in sequence across the hangar, slowly revealing the sleek white form of... the Normandy. Her old starship, the one that had taken her through her travels, the one she had watched explode as she'd died. The Illusive Man had given her back the closest thing to a home she'd ever had. Who'd have thought he could seal the trap by giving her a spaceship?

There were a few differences, she thought, a little annoyed that she'd thought of the Illusive Man before noticing. The four oversized engines, two on each swooping wing, were the same. The two sensor pylons, looking almost like the tail fins on ancient earth airplanes, were slightly larger. The main body, arching forward, was both thicker and much longer, keeping the same sleek feeling despite its increased size. And it was painted in Cerberus white, black, and gold. Grossly impractical for maintaining anonymity, it could only have been a symbol. And as everyone else belonged to Cerberus, that meant it was for her.

"It's good to be home, huh commander?"

She prayed he never realized the irony of that statement.

"I guess we'll have to give her a name." As if she would name it anything else.

The tour revealed that the ship had been upgraded significantly, and not only in size. Jacob and Miranda led Shepard through the ships Combat Information Center, or CIC. The deck held the armory, the lab, and the three dimensionally projected galaxy which served as a map for the ship. It was nearly twice the size as the CIC of the original Normandy, and the rest of the ship was built on the same scale.

They made their way through the engineering deck which housed the Tantalus drive core. The engine, which made such an impressive display, took up most of the deck. It was a massive sphere covered in coolant tubes and containment fields. Visual distortions, almost like mist, played along the sphere's surface due to the extremely high concentration of eezo.

The middle deck was the crew quarters, consisting of the sleeping pods so necessary to save space, the mess, Miranda's personal office, and the medical bay. Everything one would need to keep a crew going through hostile territory.

They even gave her private quarters. On her own deck. She was still a little taken aback by the idea. Even as XO on the last Normandy she hadn't had her own room. She had been with the crew, sharing their sleeping pods, aware of everything that was going on aboard. Now it felt like she was being isolated even before they started.

They'd finished the tour back in the CIC.

Jacob smiled, excited to finally be getting underway. "Welcome aboard the new Normandy Commander." Miranda, probably feeling above the obvious excitement on Jacob's face, was all business. "I've been looking over the dossiers. I'd strongly recommend starting by acquiring Mordin Solus, the salarian Professor on Omega. We know the collectors have some type of advanced technology to immobilize their victims. We'll need him to develop a countermeasure to protect us."

Yes, Illusive Man, no need to have her repeat _everything_ you told me. Message received. Still, no need to offend her. She was just doing her job as XO. Eh, maybe Shepard was just feeling magnanimous from having Joker and the Normandy back, however changed. She nodded placatingly.

"Without that countermeasure we'll be helpless if we ever run into the collectors."

"Acquiring Professor Solus seems like the most logical place to start."

Shepard looked around, seeing no one close enough to have made the comment. The voice was synthesized... artificial. "Who are you?"

A holographic display jumped to life, creating a blue sphere placed on top of a blue pillar. A vertical volume indicator spread across the sphere and spiked horizontally as the voice spoke, forming a sort of mouth.

"I am the Normandy's artificial intelligence. The crew refer to me as EDI."

Her first thought was of Joker, even before her mind flitted back over all the stories of AI's going insane and trying to kill everyone they could reach. "Helmsman aren't happy when someone else flies the ship for them. Especially Joker."

If anything, the computers voice became even more dry.

"I do not helm the ship. Mr Moreau's talents will not go to waste. During combat I operate the electronic warfare and cyberwarfare suites. Beyond that I cannot interface with the ship's systems. I observe and offer analysis and advice. Nothing more."

The computer disabled the interface panel, effectively running off to sulk. Great. With Cerberus involved, it figured they'd make an AI without a sense of humor. She sighed and turned her attention back to Miranda and Jacob, both of whom were trying to gauge her reaction. She had long, long practice in showing exactly what she wanted to, however. They'd rebuilt her bit by bit, but they still didn't _know_ her. It was reassuring in an odd way.

Still, they were obviously waiting for something. They'd shown her around enough that there was a good chance she'd only get lost a couple of times, but she still didn't really know the ship, just as they didn't know her. A ship, just like a person, may be more than the sum of its parts, but you got to know it by looking at one part at a time, figuring it out, and then grasping the whole. It was how she'd gotten by on the streets, how she'd gotten by in the military, and she sure wasn't going to abandon it now. So not introducing her to _any_ of the crew was a little irritating. Best to start with the obvious.

"I'm guessing it takes more than just the three of us plus Joker to fly this ship." Miranda didn't pick up on the jibe. Or maybe ignored it to spite her.

"The Normandy has a full crew. They're at their stations awaiting your orders."

They were all rescued from an awkward pause by Joker, coming in over the intercom.

"Final preparations for takeoff are complete Commander. When you're ready to go just pick a destination from the galaxy map in the CIC and I'll plot a course."

At last they gave up trying to get a reaction from her.

"Jacob and I should return to our posts. Come find us if you have any questions." With that they turned away and headed off to wherever they were going.

Finally Shepard allowed herself to really relax. Or try to relax, at least. She leaned into one of the support columns along the bulkhead and took in the scene.

It was easy, what with the everyday occurrence of space travel, to get caught up in the hustle and bustle and miss the grandeur of the thing. It was something of a defense mechanism for her, she knew. If you could glamorize it, even just a little, it took the edge of the daily grind. Which didn't make it any less effective.

The CIC was jam packed with expensive, powerful systems. Its main section was roughly composed of a half-circle, the flat bulkhead concealing the armory and lab, with a long and thin walkway at the tip of the rounded edge leading up to the open cockpit. All along each side of the CIC sad deep chairs, though only half were currently occupied. Within hands reach of the chairs orange holographic displays flared and gyrated wildly. This was the ships nerve center, its brain, which let it soar among the stars. All of it was beyond Shepard's understanding.

It was funny, in a way. She was an undisputed master of ground combat. She'd killed too many people, robots, or what have you, for any to disagree. Perhaps not _the_ best, but definitely a force to be reckoned with. Yet for all her years of fighting, for all her years in the alliance and even aboard the first Normandy, she would be as helpless in the pilots chair as Joker was in a fist fight.

Things hadn't gotten much better in the tech lab. She'd recognized a microscope, and a handful of other devices from the tidbits of science class she'd picked up on in high school, but she really had no idea what it did. Apparently nobody else, with the possible exception of Miranda, got it either, which was why they were headed off to get the salarian scientist. A small comfort. She wasn't the only one out of her league on the ship.

While it may have been painfully beyond her ability to figure out, that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate the beauty of it. The center of the CIC was filled with a massive, roughly triangular display console. Above it hovered a diagram of the ship itself, a lovingly rendered copy of the ship's smooth lines and impressive numbers. Well, Joker said they were impressive at any rate.

She tried not to let the stares of passing Cerberus crew throw her off her train of thought, but eventually one of the more persistent crew members broke through. The first thing that was apparent was that she was bubbly. She was slightly shorter than average woman, short red hair carefully arranged. She looked up at her with wide eyes.

"Hi! I'm Yeoman Kelly Chambers, and I've been assigned as your administrative assistant!" She seemed to catch herself and threw out a sharp salute. Shepard amended her opinion. She was beyond bubbly.

"I'll manage your messages and help you monitor the crew. And I must say, it's such an honor to work under you commander Shepard."

Shepard fought the urge to roll her eyes. The Illusive Man was really pulling out all the stops. For someone as used to the bargaining table as she was, it all seemed a bit heavy handed. She was already caught. There was no need to roll out the whole production. She already knew all the lines. First you abhor them, but can't quite get away. Then you tolerate them, as cheerful little people like Miss Chambers here made you feel welcome and important. Then, the very moment you embrace them, you get nailed with the heavy end of the hammer and used up for all you're worth. _It might be transparent, _she reminded herself, _but that doesn't mean you have to take it out on the poor girl who got conned into this job. _

_ "_I'm glad to have you on the team Miss Chambers."

"Please, call me Kelly."

Alarm bells. Hero worship, a sad fact of life after all that attention from her part in the Skyllian Blitz, was all too familiar to her, and this didn't fit. There was always the desire to have some sort of personal relationship, of course, but there was always distraction at first. It could be small, especially from the more self possessed ones, but it was always there, either a stutter, or even just a small pause to grasp you've actually met whoever-you-happened-to-be-worshiping-at-the-moment. It was only at the end, when the encounter was about to end that it kicked in that this was your last chance. Then came out the request for autographs, or more annoyingly, com channels. This "Kelly" was going right in.

"Let's keep this professional, Yeoman." She had a sneaking suspicion about this one. "What are your responsibilities?"

If the girl was disappointed, she did a good job hiding it.

"I'll keep you notified of any messages or appointments you might have. If any of the crew has important business to discuss, I'll make sure you know."

_And..._

"Isn't that the type of task better suited for a VI?"

Miss Chambers smiled ruefully. Her tone calmed down to a more normal pitch. "Yes, but that's just my official role. Unofficially I observe the crew. Everyone knows how risky our mission is. Many of us may not be coming back. That's a lot of pressure. I have a degree in psychology. I'm good at sensing when people are overly taxed."

Well, to her credit she didn't dance around the issue. She knew what she was and what her job was. Maybe Shepard could make something positive come out of this. Certainly knowing who the spy was made things easier. Or was she meant to be found, to cover another...? No, there was no point in getting _that_ paranoid. The AI had cameras everywhere, there wasn't any need for that level of subterfuge. Time to put a positive spin on it, to smooth things over. And remember to be very, very careful around the lively little yeoman.

"You make sure the crew's mental health is sound?"

She gave Shepard a relieved grin at her gentle tone, and plowed on ahead eagerly, bubbly overflowing once again.

"Yes, I look for warning signs. I listen. It's not a full time job, and it's most effective when done informally."

_'Most effective' indeed._

"We're lucky to have someone of your skills aboard. Carry on." 

Shepard fled, though she managed to keep it to a brisk walk. Maybe Miss Chambers could be tactfully avoided in the future... It was all too much, too fast. Which, of course, was the idea. She needed to center herself, to find something familiar, something to hold on to. That meant going to find the one person she actually knew. Well, that the old Shepard knew. They were bleeding together, and it was probably inevitable. Sometimes she was a new, totally unconnected Shepard, then in a flash she'd snap back and it would be almost like she'd never... died. Almost.

Joker, too, was excited to see her, if not exactly for the same reasons. She hoped.

"Can you believe it Commander! It's my baby, better than new! It fits me like a glove. And leather seats! Military may set the hardware standard, but on a first-gen frigate they could care less if the seats breathe. Civilian sector comfort by design."

The blue pillar of light, another EDI terminal, wouldn't be left out.

"Reproduction was not intended to be perfect, Mr. Moreau. Seamless improvements were made."

"Aaaand there's the downside. I liked the Normandy when she was beautiful and quiet. Now she's got this thing that I don't want to talk about. Like ship cancer."

She didn't smile. Really. Things were much too chaotic, too dangerous to be amused by his rant. Well, mostly.

"I still don't trust them. We still need to move ahead, but it's all too convenient." And just like that, the light-hearted mood was gone. _Way to go, Shepard_.

"Maybe you're right." Joker looked put out, if only for a moment. "I guess it's hard to argue when they install an AI to spy on us. We're staying though, right? I mean, this seat is real leather!" You just couldn't keep Joker down.

"Good to see you're keeping it all in perspective Joker." Her voice was lighter than it had been all day. Or since she was brought back to life.

"Uh, Leather!"

Ok, she may have smiled just a tiny bit that time.

Now, there was a massive bed up there somewhere calling for her. If she was even close to as all-important as the Illusive Man wanted her to feel, than everything could wait until she had a nice, wonderfully long nights sleep. Or maybe two nights sleep. She was owed what, two years backlogged sleep?

Her thoughts tumbled off incoherently as she made her way up to the captain's cabin.

In the cockpit, Joker looked out at the stars and thought. She had started to smile when she turned away. He was sure of it! Or was she? It was just... seeing that blank look on her face as she turned from talking to the Illusive Man... it had been devastating. It was like she was empty, gone, despite all of Cerberus' promises. And the she'd come to life again before his eyes. But why? It was the question which had haunted him all day long. Was it because it was him she'd seen? Or was it just because there was another person in the room, anyone else? Was it happiness, or the mask she hid behind? It was a questions he couldn't answer.

"Your efficiency has dropped significantly since your conversation with Commander Shepard, Mr. Moreau. What is wrong?"

Interrupting his thoughts again. Stupid AI.

"Nothing a computer would understand."

His joke had made her smile though, corny as it had been. It had made things better. It was a start, at working off that debt he owed her. How many jokes, how many brighter moments equaled a life taken? That thought threw him back into his analysis of evasion patterns with an enthusiasm even EDI couldn't complain about.


	6. Boys

**Hey again everyone. As I start to get the hang of this I'm adding in my own original content, which will start to show a lot more of where Shepard is coming from. Also, reviews (constructive criticism if at all possible) make the chapters both better and faster in the making. Thanks to my beta reader ShadesOfMauve for being fantastic.**

Chapter 6: Boys

_Second Lieutenant Shepard moaned and rolled over in bed. The silky feel of sheets on her legs, honest to goodness sheets, was still a rare pleasure to be luxuriated in. Cardboard and concrete were not all that far in her past. At last, however, the blaring alarm on the night stand could no longer be ignored. With a sigh she sat up, suppressing the urge to give it a shove with her biotics. Street life didn't have much going for it, but you could at least sleep in. _

_ She hated getting up early. _

_ Once she joined the Alliance she had to resort to leaving her alarm on the other side of the room. That had worked well, right up to the point she'd figured out she could use her biotics right there from bed. She'd had to earn a few demerits before her sense of discipline caught up. _

_ Today wasn't nearly so bad, however, as the alarm read 9:00 instead of the depressingly familiar 6:30. She was starting to get used to Elysium's 28 hour days, but it wasn't something that could be adjusted to quickly. Which explained why she kept her bleary eyes closed as she crawled out of bed, over the single Alliance-blue duffel bag that held all her possessions, and stumbled towards the shower. She shed clothing as she went, her loose t-shirt and long men's athletic shorts quickly followed by her underclothing. Another habit picked up from the street-she was very uncomfortable in less than full clothing. _

_ The shower water was blessedly warm, and she gradually turned it up, hotter and hotter. There was another benefit of being on shore leave – she could shower as long as she wanted. Being clean just felt so good. Once her fingers starting getting wrinkly she gave in and stepped out of the shower to towel off. She looked into the mirror as she dried herself, still surprised by the image that met her gaze. She'd changed a lot in the four years since she'd enlisted. Her black hair had grown out from the close-cropped mess it had been with the Angeles to push the borders of regulation length, coming down to her shoulders. Acquaintances had expressed admiration at how fine and smooth it was, though to her that just meant it escaped a ponytail more frequently. Whatever other qualities or defects her hair might possess were quite beyond her._

_ The rest of her had changed almost as much. She'd gained muscle thanks to the intensive training regimen of the Marines. She wasn't as bulky as the holos of professional athletes she'd seen, as she'd gone in more for endurance and toning than heavy lifting, but she was certainly not weak, and her body showed it. _

_ She emerged from the restroom and returned to her duffel bag. That she had almost no personal possessions was something of a running joke, at least until the newest batch of squadmates found out why. Those few possessions she did have, she kept obsessively within arms reach at all times. That was the only way to hold onto something. _

_ She pulled out a fresh pair of undergarments and a set of alliance dress and started to slither into them, while giving the bag a glare. It sat half-empty, thanks to the security measures of Elysium. It was one of humanity's oldest colonies, and large enough to have attracted a significant alien presence, which made the Alliance nervous. Hence, her weapons and armor were back at base at the spaceport. They'd even taken her butterfly knife, more a souvenir than a practical weapon._

_ It made her nervous-both being separated from her weapons as much as leaving behind anything of hers, yet she'd braved her uncertainties in order to at last get a real hotel room. Being stationed aboard ships made space come at a premium. She was used to it, of course, and was a lot better at it than most others considering her past, but every once in a while it was nice to have some space all to yourself. _

_ She had just stepped to the little refrigerator to look for something for breakfast when the room shook. It was followed almost immediately by an enormous sound, so deep you felt it more than you heard it. There was no mistaking it, however: heavy munitions. And close. All was silent for a moment, a single instant, before all hell broke loose._

Shepard startled awake, tangled in her sheets, grasping for her pistol. She had it in her grasp before she realized where she was. When she was.

She was in the cabin of the Normandy, the _new_ Normandy. With human supremacist terrorists. Willingly, more or less. On second thought, was this much better?

She shook the thought off and staggered her way into the bathroom, her eyes as bleary as they had been that day back on Elysium. Her bones ached, and her skin seemed stretched too tight over her body. She took a shower for what seemed like the second time in as many minutes, then got dressed in the black and white Cerberus uniform that had been provided for her. Of course the Illusive Man would make sure there was nothing else to wear.

Now the crew would think she'd gone over to the dark side, and making a big deal about breaking that assumption would make her seem unwilling to work with them, like she was judging them. Which she was, but they couldn't know that if they were going to work together effectively. Score another one for the Illusive Man. It seemed like she hadn't even approached the score board.

What she needed was a distraction, something to get her thoughts removed from the past. The _last_ thing she wanted to do was parade around a whole crew of Cerberus people, which was she was supposed to be doing, which meant she had to get somewhere off ship. Fortunately, tracking down this salarian promised to do just that. She took a moment to put her hair up in an easy ponytail and headed down to CIC to see what good deeds Cerberus had in mind for her today. Smart money was on murder.

It wasn't much to look at, that was certain. Omega, the beating heart of the lawless Terminus Systems, the center of everything dirty, crooked, and desirable within six relay jumps. Anything could be had there. It sounded almost romantic, like something out of story, but the closer you looked the uglier it got. Which was a little concerning, as they were barely within sensor range. It was a giant hunk of rock, a nameless asteroid with a core of element zero even the Protheans couldn't get at, until it was broken open by an impact with another asteroid.

A rush of prospectors later and there were 7.8 million people and not much element zero left. As the population grew, the builders were forced to build vertically, or down if you went with station gravity, stacking apartments, services, and environmental controls on top of layers of processing facilities. This tail of superstructure was ringed by enormous mass effect field generators to redirect incoming debris, which completed the image of a massive jellyfish. And then someone had the idea of lining the ring of generators with lurid red neon lights. And that about summed up Omega; cold utilitarianism with a dash of leering hedonism layered on top. And don't look too close, or you'll see through the thin makeup.

There was nothing so crass as an inspection when they docked. They hadn't even been hailed by traffic control, if there was one. Joker simply shrugged, chose a docking station, and pulled in.

Shepard stood at the airlock looking out over Jacob and Miranda, the ground crew, and the small contingent of former Alliance marines that made up ship security. "I want two armed guards on the airlocks at all times. No exceptions. Nobody comes on the ship at any time, for any reason, without my approval. If they come close, warn them off. If they don't listen, shoot first and ask questions later." Shepard eyed the Cerberus crew uncertainly. Anyone who joined with Cerberus was questionable in her mind, but at least the way they handled their Avenger assault rifles inspired some confidence.

"Let's go."

The first thing she noticed about Omega was how dirty it was. Trash, leaking coolant, even bloodstains in a rainbow of colors were smeared into the floor, the walls. Viewscreens lined the sides of the entry corridor, displaying the cold rock of asteroid from which the tunnel was mined. Steam sprayed from leaking seals on exposed pipes above. It seemed a miracle the place held together at all.

The second thing she noticed was how dirty the people were. For example, the salarian scampering over to the trio. The humanoid alien, skeletally thin by human standards, was short lived, to say the least. Few lived beyond forty, though they made up for it with hyperactive energy and little need for sleep. They would never pass for human though, not with the two gently curved horns protruding from the tops of their heads, their oversized eyes, and slits for nostrils.

The smell announced his presence well before he was close enough to speak. "Welcome to Omega. You're new here, aren't ya? I can always tell. Allow me to..."

He was interrupted by the arrival of a batarian in black combat armor that looked as if it'd seen a lot of use. Even closer to humans than salarians, the batarians were marked by elongated craniums which housed two pairs of eyes, one slightly above the other, and a brown-red skin tone. They were known for being mercenaries or slavers, though to be fair that was a bit of a stereotype. They were quite rare in council space after severing connections with the Council for allowing humans to expand into the Skyllian Verge, which they had plans on settling. Which led to Elysium. Oh yes, Shepard knew all about batarians.

The salarian seemed to wilt where he stood.

"Oh hello Moklet. I was just..."

"Leave Farget. Now."

The salarian immediately started backing off. "Of course Moklet. Whatever she wants!" A moment later and he was out of sight.

"Blasted scavengers. Welcome to Omega, Shepard."

That caught her by surprise. Wasn't she declared dead?

"You know who I am?"

He laughed. "Of course. We had you tagged as soon as you entered the Terminus Systems. You're not as subtle as you think. Aria wants to know what brings a dead Spectre to Omega. I suggest you go to Afterlife, _now,_ and present yourself."

That wasn't anything new. The local leader wanted to size up the newcomers and see if they'd make trouble. She'd been part of the demanding group many times with the Angeles, trying to figure out of the intruders were lying or not. Best to get to the point.

"Cut the attitude. I'm not here to cause problems for Omega."

"Things explode around you Shepard. You can't blame Aria for keeping an eye on you. Afterlife. Now." He turned and marched off, glaring at anyone who dared look at him.

Not that she'd expected him to change his mind. If this Aria was powerful enough to have control of an area on Omega, no doubt she would be scarier to her employees, or hangers on, or whatever you wanted to call them, than an unknown outsider. Best to get this over with.

"Alright, let's go talk to this Aria and see what she wants. Try not to antagonize anyone, and leave the talking to me."

"We're with you Shepard." Jacob the team player. Miranda looked a little more concerned. Not comfortable following someone else's lead? Probably.

Shepard tried not to touch anything as they wound their way towards the center of the station. Their weapons and armor kept even the more adventuresome thieves at bay. Apparently the local mercs didn't take too kindly to them.

It wasn't hard to find the club. The center of the asteroid was a gigantic cavity stretching far above them. At its center stood a massive support pillar, the center of which was repurposed into the night club's entrance. Bright red neon letters spelled out Afterlife, while live flames on either side sent weird reflections off the tower of rippling pink that stretched upwards above the entrance. Not much for subtlety, these people. On the other hand, if you lived in this filth, maybe overwhelming beat-you-over-the-head hedonism was what you wanted.

Shepard cut straight to the front of the line, carefully watched by a line of guards with assault rifles. They were old, beat up weapons that had seen better days, but would definitely be in good working order. The head bouncer, eyes focused on the datapad in front of him gave her a cursory glance before waving her inside. "Aria's expecting you."

The doors closed behind her as the crowd's whine of protest brought the guards' weapons up.

The inside of the place was no better. The floor of the small entry tunnel was lit up with red lights. The only other source of illumination were projected flames all along the walls. If this was supposed to be afterlife, it wasn't hard to guess which direction you were headed. And, as the doors opened to reveal the club proper, it was clear just how excited the club's patrons were to get there.

The towering pink lights from outside were proving to be a theme, as the club was roughly circular, and centered around a column of glowing pink. More live flames stood high up around the room, backed by yellow flood lights which spread shadows of the flames' weird contortions across the floor and walls. A bar ringed the pillar in its entirety, and was surrounded in turn by booths, both public and private. The music hit like a physical blow, so loud the bass pulsed inside you. Asari were everywhere.

The first species to develop inter-galactic space-flight since the long extinct protheans, asari were remarkably close in appearance to human females, except for their generally blue skin-tone and wavy folds of sculpted skin running backwards off the head like hair. With a lifetime frequently in excess of 1,000 years and a natural proclivity for biotics in every individual, they were the single most powerful economy and species in council space, and probably the most respected as well. Which made it all the more disconcerting to have a whole group of them gyrating provocatively up and down stripper poles, their clothes (or lack thereof) leaving little to the imagination.

They wound their way through the mass of people, all in various stages of intoxication. Though it looked like a party, the guards carefully spread around the floor armed with shotguns gave a distinctly different impression.

Aria turned out to be an asari on an elevated platform on the far side of the club, overlooking the entrance and the rest of the floor. The guards were much more closely grouped here, and a whole squad waited for them at the foot of Aria's platform.

Aria stood with her back to them.

"That's close enough."

Aria's personal bodyguards drew pistols on them. Jacob and Miranda, not as familiar with the politics of gangs, decided that would be a good time to draw weapons. The rest of the guard contingent followed suit.

"Stand _down_," Shepard hissed. Getting killed again for no real purpose right at the start of this crazy mission was not exactly the way she planned to go out. Mercifully they obeyed, even Miranda, and the guards visibly relaxed. The bodyguard pulled out an omni-tool and started scanning Shepard's body. She was careful not to let him touch her.

_Well, that was different_. Normally they confiscated weapons, but apparently Aria was confident enough in herself and her guards to ignore them. _Gutsy. But ease into it, give them something they expect, let them know they're in control._

"If you're looking for weapons, you're not doing a very good job of it." She patted her M-3 Predator meaningfully.

The guard bristled.

"Stand still!"

Aria spoke, her strong feminine voice reasonable. "Can't be too careful with a dead Spectre. That could be anyone wearing your face."

"I was told you're the person to talk to if I had questions."

The guard finished, apparently satisfied. "They're clean."

Aria took that as her cue to turn around. "Depends on the questions."

She turned to face them, moving with the confident grace of her kind. She wore a loose white jacket with an odd emblem painted on the back over a close-fitted commando suit. It looked suspiciously like the ancient Greek symbol for Omega. _So she has a sense of humor, does she?_

_Now, to remind her she's in charge and that we don't want to mess with her._

"You run Omega?"

The question seemed to amuse her. She turned and looked out over the floor, the music pounding, people on the edge of control. "I _am_ Omega." She cast Shepard a sidelong glance over her shoulder. "But you need more. Everyone needs more something, and they all come to me. I'm the boss, CEO, queen if you're... feeling dramatic. It doesn't matter. Omega has no titled ruler and only one rule." She paused, slowly easing herself down onto her couch to add to the drama.

"Don't. Fuck. With Aria."

And now that the speech was out of the way, they could finally get down to business. _One more assurance of good intentions, and that should do it._

"I like it. Easy to remember."

"If you forget, someone will remind you."

The guard dog picked it up from there. "And then I throw your sorry ass out he nearest airlock."

Shepard avoided the temptation to roll her eyes. _Message delivered, come on._ If they were going to attack her they would have done it. If they weren't going to answer questions, she'd have been kicked out already. Aria liked her drama, that was for sure. She tried not to laugh at the sudden thought of Aria trying to manipulate the Illusive Man as she was trying to manipulate Shepard. Aria may be 500 years old, or whatever she was, but she would be tossed about like a plaything. Well now, down to business.

Shepard took a seat on the couches ringing the platform, and tried to not to get distracted by the undulating asari all around, at eye level this high up.

Aria, too, seemed to think that the message was delivered. In a much more amiable tone, she asked what she could do for Shepard. Shepard was still curious, however.

"One scan and we're straight to business? People are usually more concerned about who I am."

"Your death was downplayed but hardly what I'd call a secret. I had to make sure it was really you. You could have been anyone, anything. Whatever you need will come out on its own. I'm curious, but... Omega doesn't really care about you."

As much as it surely sounded like an insult to Miranda and Jacob, it was actually reassuring to Shepard. That was exactly the place she wanted to be in someone else's gang war. But, as ever, duty called.

"I'm looking for Mordin Solus. Do you know where I can find him?"

"The salarian Doctor?" she asked with evident surprise. "Last I heard he was trying to help plague victims in the quarantine zone. I always liked Mordin. He's as likely to heal you as he is to shoot you." That her translator turned around the English phrase spoke to how intentionally Aria put the surprise emphasis on the "heal" bit.

"How do I get to him?"

"If you really need to find him, take a shuttle to the quarantine zone. No guarantee they'll let you in, of course."

_Right, because she's actually _not_ in control of her own organization_. To show that much lack of control would be a weakness, so it was obviously supposed to be a threat. Or maybe a warning, an I-won't-protect-you kind of thing.

_Alright then_. She checked the Illusive Man's dossiers on her omnitool.

"I'm trying to track down Archangel."

"You and half of Omega." That one wasn't so much of a surprise. "You want him dead too?"

That caught Shepard's attention. "Why is everyone after him?"

"He thinks he's fighting on the side of good. There is no good side to Omega. Everything he does pisses someone off. It's catching up to him."

And didn't that make the "I am Omega" comment a bit more interesting.

"Just the kind of guy I'm looking for."

"Really. Well aren't you interesting." She returned Shepard's sarcasm drop for drop before turning serious. "You're going to make some enemies teaming up with Archangel. That's assuming you can get to him. He's in a bit of trouble right now."

It was beginning to irritate, the way she was making Shepard draw it out of her.

"Ok, what _kind_ of trouble?

Fortunately for Shepard's temper, Aria relented on her little joke.

"The local merc groups joined forces to take him down. They've got him cornered, but it sounds like they're having trouble finishing him off. They've started hiring anyone with a gun to help them."

Jacob cut in from a few steps below. "Sounds like that might be our ticket in."

Shepard gave him her best do-not-speak glance.

"They're using a private room for recruiting. Just over there. I'm sure they'll sign you up."

Well, that was one way to find them. But would he join them when they marched in, guns waving, or just try to shoot them like everyone else? Only knowing who he was could tell her that.

"What can you tell me about archangel?"

Aria shrugged. "Not as much as I'd like. He showed up here several months ago and started causing all sorts of problems. If you make your own laws, which everyone here does, he makes life difficult. He's reckless and idealistic." It was hard to tell which she found more repulsive. "But he seems to know enough to steer clear of me."

Helpfully vague. And for the opposition...

"Which merc groups are after Archangel?"

"Blue Suns, Eclipse, Blood Pack. They're Omega's major players. Unless they're at war you'll _never_ see them together. But one thing they hate more than each other is archangel."

Why was it always back to those three? But now for the most important question. Though they hadn't made it too hard for her, Aria had figured out their purpose. She could quite easily get them all killed simply by tipping off the mercs as soon as they stepped food into the recruiting station.

"Do _you_ hate Archangel?"

She obviously understood the import of the question. She looked away before answering, not giving anything away.

"I don't have time for hate. But I distrust them all equally. For now I'm happy just to let them all kill each other."

And wasn't that a clever little double meaning. She would lay back, let them do what they wanted to do. It deserved a double meaning in return.

"I appreciate the help."

Aria either missed it or didn't care to continue the game.

"See if you still feel that way when the merc groups realize you're here to help him."

"Sounds like I don't have a lot of time to waste."

"You've got all the time in the world. Archangel... not so much."

They paused outside of the merc recruiting station, which was no more than a dingy private booth.

"Alright, change of plans. As you heard, Archangel doesn't have much time, so we're going to have to go for him first."

Miranda and Jacob nodded in assent.

Inside the recruiting station sat yet another batarian, this one with the blue and white paint of the Blue Suns sprayed over his armor. He was just finishing up negotiating with a middle-aged merc, who by the look of it had just purchased his own brand new, unscuffed armor and pistol. Not a good sign.

"You'll get paid when the job's done, just like everyone else. Who's next?" The freelancer stepped passed them, glaring defensively as if trying to prove his toughness. Worse sign. Even if he wasn't on this mission, he wouldn't last long. She let it go and stepped past him to speak with the Blue Sun.

"Weeeelll, aren't you sweet. You're in the wrong place, honey. Strippers quarters are that way." She gave him a blank stare, though she could feel Miranda bristle behind her.

"Wow, not even a smile. So you're here to fight then."

This whole thing was so half-cocked they might get sent to the other side of the galaxy if she wasn't careful. "If this is the place to go after Archangel."

He nodded, suddenly grim. "This is the place." His voice fell into the monotonous tone of someone who's said the same thing many, many times. "Standard fee is 500 credits each, you get paid when the job's done. If you die, your friends don't collect your share. You'll need your own weapons and armor..." He gave them each a cursory glance. "Looks like you've got that covered. And no, this does not make you a member of the Blue Suns, Eclipse, or Blood Pack. You're a freelancer. Period. Any questions?"

"Where do I go next?"

He explained it to them, and gave them a rough outline of the plan. Apparently Archangel was holed up in a two-story house and had collapsed all other entrances aside from a narrow bridge. A small team of Blue Suns had made it across the bridge with the distraction of a whole squad of now deceased freelancers and were planning on blowing the last door, but needed another distraction to prevent Archangel from sweeping them up. It sounded like they had a healthy respect for Archangel's capabilities. And not very much for the freelancer's lives.

Jacob was still fuming about it when they turned to leave. "Sounds like a suicide mi..."

Shepard held up her hand to quiet him as another would-be freelancer strolled in. This one was young, a human probably still in his teens.

"Is this the place to sign up?"

Shepard groaned internally. Another kid in over his head, just like back on Elysium. _Don't make me kill you._

"You look a little young to be freelancing as a merc."

Of course, being a teenager he would immediately take it as questioning his manhood.

"I'm old enough! I grew up on Omega, I know how to use a gun." He did his best to stalk impressively over to them.

Jacob, finally seeing something he could do, cut in. "So does Archangel."

"I can handle myself! Besides, I just spent 50 credits on this pistol, and I want to use it." He took out the weapon in question, a beat up old M-4 model well known for getting jammed, and started waving it around haphazardly. Honestly, the kid was asking for it.

She stepped right up in his face. "Get your money back." He seemed stunned, the way most people are when confronted with the unexpected, which made it all the easier to strip the weapon out of his loose grip as she stepped away. "Hey, wha..."

She bashed her hand against the side of the barrel, jamming the overly delicate firing mechanism before handing it back. "You'll thank me later."

She left the kid standing there staring after her, the useless weapon in one outstretched hand. Boys.


	7. Angels

**Hello again everyone! I've been doing some thinking and have finally decided to actually listen to the advice from your reviews and ShadesOfMauve, my fantastic Beta. I'm going to start putting in more unique material. *gasp* That's right, things are going to start changing... slowly, as I feel my way into it in this chapter, but next chapter I have some bigger changes coming. So stick with me! Thanks, and please review so I can make this into the story I want to write and you want to read.**

Chapter 7: Angels

The shuttle ride was quiet. Miranda was upset at how little planning actually went into their plan, and Jacob knew better than to talk when she was unhappy. Miranda had had all sorts of elegant, clever solutions for getting Archangel out. The simplest involved burrowing a tunnel through the asteroid, the most complicated flights of Cerberus gunships and hit and run attacks along the perimeter. Shepard heard them with polite disbelief before finally putting her foot down.

She had no doubt that Miranda's plans would have worked, given enough time and control of the situation, and they probably would have fewer deaths to boot, but they wouldn't work here and now, which was what mattered. She'd tried to be patient while she explained that plots and intricate plans worked well when you could control the battlefield, but when you couldn't the best approach was the simplest, most direct one.

Which was why they were planning to go over the bridge with the distraction team, finish off any survivors, fight there way through the team with the bomb, and get to Archangel. If killing off his attackers didn't convince Archangel they were on his side, well, they'd have to talk fast.

Miranda hadn't given up for a long time. At last she'd fallen silent with the parting quip that "you don't even have a plan for getting _out._" Which, sadly, was true. To be honest, Shepard didn't much care. They'd come up with something on the spot, and if it worked they'd get out, and if it didn't they'd die. Maybe even stay dead, unless this was going to turn into some horrible horror movie where she kept coming back to die again and again.

Tali's turning her back on Shepard had hurt worse than she'd let on, even to herself.

In the end, though, Miranda had been forced to back down by the Illusive Man's standing orders to follow her lead. At last the shuttle set down and they emerged in another block of grimy streets, and the pilot stepped out to break the silence.

"It's about time they sent me someone who actually looks like they can fight. They tell you what we're up against?"

Shepard took the lead.

"Narrow bridge under sniper fire, right?"

"Yeah, I'm impressed you guys signed up knowing the truth. Most back away once we go into details. He's got superior position and that bridge is the only way in or out. It's a killing ground. But he's getting tired, making mistakes. We'll have him soon enough."

Jacob still couldn't let it go. "Sounds like a suicide mission to me." Of course, it was directed more at her than at the mercenary.

The Blue Sun shrugged. "Pretty much, but you look like you can handle it. Head up to the third barricade and ask for Sergeant Cathka. He'll tell you when to go in." With a parting wave he was back in the shuttle.

"EDI, are there any other ways in?"

"Shepard, I have scanned the area, but am unable to plot any other paths to Archangel."

"I guess we're going with the mercs."

"The mercenary groups have heavy mechs and a gunship which possess considerable firepower. Weakening them before leaving will improve your chances."

The mercenaries had the place well and truly surrounded, that was plain to see. A whole series of barricades made of confiscated furniture and whatever other odds and ends they could get their hands on were lined up facing the bridge and around the sides, all pouring fire into Archangel's base. They had to walk through the temporary headquarters of all three of the Eclipse, Blue Suns, and the Blood Pack to reach the front, and it occurred to Shepard that Miranda's and Jacob's visible Cerberus logos were a very, very bad idea. Fortunately the battle seemed to have the aliens distracted. Those that weren't actively shooting were planning.

Shepard thought about what she knew about each group as they marched through their soldiers, her helmet already sealed. It wouldn't do to get spotted. _Again_.

The Eclipse Security Company was famed for its members' ability to get things done quietly. They only accepted recruits with biotic powers or in-depth technical prowess, and liked to move in small and fast strike teams, relying more on strategy and less on stand-up confrontation. Wherever their asari, salarian or human members showed up, smuggling of both the cargo and sentient variety wasn't far behind.

The Blue Suns Private Security Company was more of a standard army. They accepted just about everyone, though they didn't pay well. This left them with mostly humans and batarians without biotics, but they had the numbers and shields to give anyone problems. Lacking the individual punch of the Eclipse or the toughness of the Blood Pack they relied much more heavily on coordination, teamwork, and discipline under fire.

Finally there was the Blood Pack. They were the heavy muscle of whatever operation they were involved in, favoring straight fights to anything complicated. They were officially exclusively krogan, though they relied heavily on Vorcha to give them numbers. The Blood Pack were shock troops, and undeniably effective. _And intimidating_, Shepard noticed as she carefully skirted around Garm, the local Blood Pack leader. He was huge even for a krogan.

Standing well over 7 feet tall and built on just as big a scale, in armor a krogan weighed more than a ton. Garm had a heavy plate which ran from the large hump on his back, down to the eyes set on each side of his face. Other natural plates covered the vital parts of the reptilian species to protect a system of secondary and occasionally even tertiary organs. They could eat almost anything, live almost anywhere, and until the galactic community hit them with a virus which drastically lowered krogan birthrates called the Genophage, reproduced extremely rapidly. If this weren't enough to make them dangerous warriors, they were also extremely aggressive, both with their own kind and aliens. Add to that the skill that 1000 plus years of experience brought, and you had just about the ultimate fighter.

Fortunately, since the virus there weren't all that many of them, which explained the Vorcha's presence all around their leader. Not that the Vorcha were much better. The Vorcha were the most short-lived of sapient species, with an average lifespan of only 20 years. Many denied that they were sapient at all. They were best known for their rather unique biology. Each Vorcha had clusters of non-differentiated cells throughout their body which allowed them to quickly adapt to any new environment as the cells matured into whatever form would most effectively ensure their survival. This also allowed the Vorcha to heal remarkably quickly, at least until their supply of non-differentiated cells ran out. They were also savage and quick, and uncomfortable with verbal forms of communication, leading to most people simply considering them as pests.

All in all, there were no easy targets when it came to the Blood Pack. Their strategy was generally just to soak up your fire and keep right on coming until they could tear you apart at close range. Which was why Shepard was content to put as much distance as possible between them and the Blood Pack.

With EDI's help they managed to locate the converted storage room filled with ready mechs. Jacob and Shepard stood guard while Miranda did something fancy with their computer network. She claimed it would reclassify their Identify Friend/Foe system, and Shepard devoutly hoped it would work.

At last they found themselves among a sea of freelancers. They were the only group without matching armor, and the only group to look terrified while still way back behind cover in an impromptu flight hangar. Seeing new arrivals, the freelancers waved them forward to talk to Sergeant Cathka.

The Sergeant looked up from his work, alternating between a blowtorch and an arc welder on the hull of a gunship. "Ah, you must be the group Salkie mentioned."

"Were you waiting for us?"

"Yeah, the infiltration team is about to give us the signal. Archangel won't know what hit him. Got any questions? This may be your last chance."

He put down his tools and lit up a cigarette. Well, humanity had added at least one thing to the galactic community.

"What kind of Gunship is this?" Shepard cast an appreciative eye over the strong lines of the black ship.

Cathka smiled, happy to show off his toy. "The A-61 Mantis Gunship. It's kind of like your old helicopters, though the eezo core gives it far more kick than anything you've ever had." She gave him a look.

"What, I'm a history buff. Well, military history." He shrugged. "Trust me, you humans have never seen anything like the Precision Kill Rockets on this baby, and the M350 guns? Ha! They'd cut through you like a gnavor through a flock of squrlsirs. The best ground support ship in the galaxy." He patted its heavy armor affectionately.

Gnavors and squrlsirs aside, it certainly was a formidable craft. And not something Shepard wanted left behind to deal with later.

A com buzz sounded before Shepard could reply and Cathka hurried off to the nearest diagnostic console. Shepard nodded to Miranda, who quickly set to work with her omnitool. With any luck she could at least take down its shields.

"Check. Bravo team, go, go!"

The other freelancers headed out, jumping the last barricade and firing frantically, and inaccurately, towards Archangel's position. Shepard led the little trio past, pausing only to smash the butt of her shotgun into the back of Cathka's helmet. Hopefully he'd be stunned, not killed. That was the problem with talking to people who needed killing; it made it all so much harder.

They joined the rush of freelancers across the bridge, keeping up the pace even as three were cut down by murderously accurate sniper rifle fire from the building's second story. The tricky bit was choosing when to reveal their true allegiance. Too close to the barricade and they'd get torn to pieces from both sides. Too far, and Archangel might take one of them out. They weren't kidding when they said it was an exposed bridge; they were completely at Archangel's mercy.

Shepard waited until it felt right, and pulled the trigger right at the end of the bridge. It took a moment for the freelancers to realize what had happened. It took less time than that for the trio to cut through them. For the last freelancer, in a panic trying to retreat across the bridge, she focused all her power and _lifted_ him clear off the ground. Floating in the air, he was easy prey for the sniper round that blew his head off. If that wasn't a clear signal of friendly intention, she didn't know what was.

That left the infiltration crew.

She started falling into her pattern, probing with her pistol around each corner, easing her way forwards. The battle continued outside, as evidenced by the sound of machine gun fire and the hear-it-for-kilometers concussion of the sniper rifle. Mercenaries fell before her fire almost without her notice. She was acting on instinct, reacting before she could consciously follow her decision-making process. The mercs didn't last long, the last falling even as he desperately pounded against the sealed door to Archangel, calling out for mercy. Her Predator silenced him before she even registered his words.

When she did, it shook her.

There was battle focus, but this was something different. It was a return of what she'd been on the Lazarus station, a mindless creature of violence and death, confused about her purpose, intentions, and even identity. But Archangel was ahead, and there was no time, no time to pause. She raced forward, running away as much as she ran forward.

They charged around the corner, weapons leveled, to reveal Archangel, a turian with deep blue armor. He hardly even acknowledged them, merely holding up a three-fingered hand. He may have been a different species, but the gesture was almost identical to its human equivalent: give me a second.

The turian had never taken his gaze off the scope, and returned his loose hand to settle beneath his Mantis sniper rifle. The rifle kicked powerfully, marking the death of yet another mercenary, and the turian turned, slow with exhaustion, and removed his helmet. "Shepard... I thought you were dead."

"Garrus!" The confusion, the turmoil over what she'd done, evaporated in that moment. Her enthusiasm, gone since Tali's departure, returned full measure. She had a friend, a real friend, who'd been through so much with her in taking down the Reaper and rogue Spectre Saren. "What are you doing here?"

"Just keeping my skills sharp. A little target practice." Garrus tried to be flippant, but he was obviously pushing himself just to get the words out.

Her rampant enthusiasm calmed a bit, finally recognizing the strain he was under. "You ok?"

"I've been better, but it sure is nice to see a friendly face. Killing mercs is hard work. Especially on my own."

The fire from the barricades, mostly died down while they waited the results of the infiltration team, started to pick back up again. No time to chat.

"Well we got here, but I don't think getting out will be as easy." Despite the seriousness of the situation, Shepard caught Miranda giving her an "I told you so" look behind Garrus' back. She rolled her eyes.

Garrus turned and started pacing. "No, it won't. That bridge has saved my life, funneling all those witless idiots into scope. But, it works both ways. They'll slaughter us if we try to get out that way.

"So we just sit here and wait for them to take us out? That's the plan?" Three guesses who that was.

Garrus glanced at Miranda, puzzled, but too tired to bother trying to figure out what her problem was. "It's not that bad. This place has held them off so far. And, with three of you, I suggest we hold this location, wait for a crack in their defenses, and take our chances. It's not a perfect plan... but it's a plan."

"If we fight as a team we'll hold them off," Shepard cut in before Miranda could make another smart remark. She put the slightest emphasis on "team."

Garrus was putting it all together.

"You're right. Their numbers won't help them in here anyway. Let's see what they're up to." He broke off pacing to look out the front window, glass long since shattered, using the scope of his rifle to take a closer view. "Hmm... looks like they know their infiltration team failed. Take a look."

He handed Shepard the rifle. The weapon was heavier than she was used to, its center of gravity much farther from her than on any other weapon she used, but the sight revealed a handful of mechs, painted with the insignia of the Eclipse Security Company.

"That looks like a lot more than scouts." She handed the rifle back to Garrus.

"Indeed. We'd better get ready. I'll stay up here, I can do a lot of damage from this vantage point. You... you can do what you do best." He offered her a strained smile. "Just like old times, Shepard. Let's give these bastards hell."

The fire from the barricades kicked up in a sudden crescendo, and the Eclipse mercenaries made their move. The wave of light mechs charged over the barrier, closely followed by a full squad of Eclipse soldiers.

They all crashed down behind the barricade Garrus had constructed in his little fort and returned fire frantically. Garrus handed over his assault rifle, a high-powered M-15 Vindicator, to Jacob and proceeded to wreak havoc with his Mantis. Jacob's three round bursts helped to keep the approaching mercenaries behind cover, slowing them enough to give Garrus a better chance at finishing them off. Shepard and Miranda, with no real long-range weapons of there own, cut loose with their biotics, trying to pull soldiers from cover. What Garrus struggled to accomplish alone was quite manageable with four experienced fighters.

"Look Shepard, over behind the barricade, on the left." Shepard followed Garrus' pointing finger and could just make out a salarian in Eclipse armor, gesticulating wildly and talking on his com. "That's Jaroth, the head of Eclipse on Omega. I've been after him for months. He's been shipping tainted eezo all over Citadel Space. Half the goods I seized back at Citadel Security came from his team here on Omega. I took out a big shipment of his a while back and got his top lieutenant in the process. Here's hoping we get him, too."

The reason for Jaroth's conversation became abruptly clear as a heavy lifter leaned out from behind the opposing barricade and deposited a heavy YMIR mech on the narrow bridge. The rest of the Eclipse band swarmed out behind it, confident that, with the mech to cover them they had enough bodies to rush the position. Garrus seemed to concur.

"Damn it, they're sending out the heavy mechs."

Shepard only smiled. "That problem should take care of itself."

The moment the mech activated it turned to meet the nearest life signs, which happened to be the Eclipse soldiers. Whatever Miranda had done, she'd done it well. The mech laid into them, allowing everyone in Garrus' hideout a moment to breathe. Eventually the mech went down under the sheer volume of fire the mercenaries put up, but by then only a few mercs were still on their feet. Garrus personally finished off Jaroth with a look of satisfaction.

Shepard and Garrus were side by side, their backs to the barricade. Garrus ejected his overheated thermal clip and watched it scuttle across the floor, already littered from his day-long battle. At his side lay a bucket filled with water, thermal clips bouncing happily on its surface. A simple but effective way of quickly cooling down spent clips for reuse. Shepard played with a new scratch on her armor where a tiny projectile had pinged off her and into the ceiling above. Garrus sat back, his eyes closed.

She had to keep reassuring herself that he was actually there, she felt so upbeat, so happy that it seemed that at any second she'd wake up and see it wasn't actually Garrus. She gave him a little nudge.

"There's still the Blue Suns and Blood Pack. Think we can make a break for it?"

You could almost see his mind reengage. He really was out of it. "Maybe. Let's see what they're up to." He dragged himself slowly to his feet and gazed out over the bridge. It was a scene of devastation.

The bridge itself was littered with debris, its guard rails shattered by fire from both sides. Intermingled with the concrete were mech parts from the shattered remnants of the Eclipse squad. The YMIR mech stood, half intact, though the still-smoking remains of its targeting sensors and upper torso meant that, even with a mechanic, it would be down for a long, long time. If not permanently. The bodies of six Eclipse mercenaries lay splayed around it, testament to its durability.

The vids always made battle out to be so clean, but the truth was different. Nobody died clean. Blood splattered across the merch's barricade where Shepard's team had ripped through the mercenaries coming over the wall. Human red was mixed with salarian yellow and asari blue all across the field, still dripping from stilled bodies. There must have been at least twenty on the bridge, limbs splayed, some half hanging off into space. Not counting those that had gone over the edge. The last survivors had used the bodies of their fellows as cover before joining the pile themselves. Equipment lay scattered across the field, spare thermal clips, credits, weapons of all kinds; it was a complete mess. No fire came from the other barricades as they, too, took in the destruction of Eclipse on Omega.

Garrus, however, seemed to look right past it all. He was tired... but was that it? This would have stopped him in his tracks back when she'd met him at C-Sec. "They've reinforced the other side... heavily. But they're not coming over the bridge yet. What are they waiting for?"

As if in answer a heavy concussion shook the building. Jacob, who'd been quietly talking with Miranda, jumped to his feet. "What was that?"

Garrus was frantically scrolling through displays on his omnitool. "Damn it. They've breached the lower level. Well, they had to use their brains eventually. You better get down there Shepard. I'll keep the bridge clear." He wearily picked up the Mantis he'd leaned carefully against the barricade's railing.

_There's no way I'm going to lose you right after I found you. Losing Tali was bad enough._ "Let's split up two and two-keep one of my team here."

Garrus looked relieved, though he tried to hide it. "You sure? Who knows what you'll find down there." Gallant as always, even when he was obviously well past his limit.

"Jacob, stay with Garrus. He'll need you to take out anything that gets close with that shotgun of yours." She grabbed Jacob's shoulder, feeling oddly vulnerable. "Keep him safe," she added in a whisper.

"My word on it"

"Thanks Shepard. You'd better get going."

She took one last look over the balcony as another wave of mercenaries scrambled over the wall and stumbled over the bodies of their fellows. She turned her back on them and charged down the stairs.


	8. and Demons

Chapter 8: ...and Demons

The engineering access tunnels beneath the apartment building were much like the rest of Omega, only worse. Unpleasant fluids leaked from the omnipresent rusting pipes. It was obvious the most unfortunate of beings who called Omega home normally lived down here, their pathetic possessions scattered across the floor in the haste of their retreat once the explosions started. The whole place smelled like urine and was crusted in a thick layer of dust from decades worth of falling debris from the miners far above.

Garrus's voice emerged from her com. "They've breached the debris I set up, but there's a shutter you can close which will hold them off. I did it myself, but they automatically unlocked and I haven't been able to get back down there since. Good luck." Even over the com she could hear the relentless pounding of weapons fire.

"Let's get this done." Miranda seemed to have gotten over her attitude about the plan. Or maybe it was just the thought of close quarters combat in the filthy underbelly of Omega. Either way worked for Shepard.

The fighting was brutal. The lighting was almost non-existent this far down in the station, and more frequently than not they fought by the flickering light of a single glow panel. They had to creep slowly, quietly, to avoid getting surprised by any aliens lying in wait. Their opponents were the Blood Pack, the best choice for the mercenaries and the worst for Shepard and Miranda, in this close packed warren of passages. The Blood Pack unleashed their varren first, a four-legged attack beast that made the wild dogs back on Earth look mild. They charged through the darkened corridors madly, their heavy breathing breaking the silence before they leaped out of the darkness to kill anything that moved. Close behind were the vorcha, almost as animalistic in their glee at the thought of violence, and equally at home in the grime and muck of Omega.

Shepard led with her Katana shotgun, splattering varren and vorcha alike whenever they rounded a corner in front of her. It was nerve-wracking work, and after a loud, drawn out gunfight it was even worse. One varren, smarter than the others, had lain in wait and gotten the jump on her. It was heavy enough to take her down, where she batted at it uselessly with her fists, unable to bring her shotgun to bear while it scrabbled at her armor, its heavy claws leaving deep grooves. Shields were useless at that range. She'd have been dead then and there if not for Miranda, who peppered it with fire from her Predator, splattering Shepard's armor and visor with blood.

Shepard wiped it clear as best she could, mostly only managing to smear it across the rest of her mask. The encounter left both of them shaken, though neither said a word.

Maybe it was the shock, or maybe it was simply having Garrus out of sight, but she started to slip back into the groove. Her thought processes slowed, retreated to the back of her mind and disconnected from her body, and instinct took over. She was a killer. Her ears seemed to get more sensitive, picking up on the patter of varren farther down the corridor, the growled orders of their vorcha masters. Her artificial eyes filtered in all the light available in a way she didn't even know was possible. The darkness became light for her. It was _her_ darkness.

Miranda wasn't sure what was happening, but a change came over Shepard. Instead of slowly creeping through the corridors, she was starting to move faster. Miranda had to hurry to keep up. The darkness didn't seem to bother Shepard... in fact she started moving _into_ the shadows instead of staying out in the light. She didn't even glance back, leaving Miranda no choice but to keep up or get left behind. At last they entered a larger access corridor, a squarish room filled with debris. Old, broken down air lorries, empty and dented canisters, and trash thrown from the levels far above made a jungle of nooks and crannies. About the worst possible terrain when outnumbered and fighting against animals. _At least there's light in here._ A strong central light pillar illuminated most of the room, however dimly.

And there, on the far side of the room, was the shutter control.

They'd gone too slowly.

Blood Pack poured in through the far entrance, varren, vorcha, and a krogan in the heavy red and black armor Blood Pack had made famous. The vorcha even had flamethrowers for crying out loud. It was impossible. "Shepard, we can't do this, we have to turn back, make another plan, and then ..."

Shepard turned to look at her, and the sight extinguished all thought. She looked just as she had when she was back on the operating table, her eyes completely empty. Something seemed to have changed with them – they were gleaming in the darkness. Shepard didn't say a word, and Miranda could only watch in frozen fascination as Shepard turned and smoothly walked forward, as graceful as a panther on the prowl. Incoming fire started to pour in on her as the Blood Pack saw her in the dim light. Shepard reached out her left arm and with a peculiar wrenching motion launched a blast of biotic power straight at the light pillar, which shattered into a million pieces.

Chaos broke loose.

Unable to see, all Miranda could do was huddle at the entrance and listen. All her omnitool's flashlight would have done was attract attention. Listening, however, was almost unbearable. Miranda had no idea how Shepard was doing it. Nothing she'd built into her had this kind of ability. And as the snarls of dying Varren emerged from the darkness, it became clear what was happening.

Shepard was hunting.

She seemed to be everywhere at once. One moment a vorcha would go down screaming to Miranda's left, the next a varren would let loose its dying howl to her right. There was no pattern, no meaning to this chaos. Her mind tried to organize it, categorize it, but there was nothing to work with. A pistol spat fire, tiny pinpricks of light against a black background. There a varren went down with a dozen metallic shards in its belly, reflexively pulling the trigger on its flamethrower and illuminating the darkness just enough to reveal a black shape darting back into the shadows.

The varren started to whine, the unaccustomed darkness and howls of their dying fellows making them uneasy. A vorcha panicked, spraying assault rifle rounds into the darkness at random. The noise overwhelmed everything else, until a heavy shotgun blast ended it. Then there was only silence.

Miranda strained for the slightest noise as the silence prevailed, hoping for any hint of what was happening. If Shepard had gone down... there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She wasn't used to feeling powerless.

A heavy thud and a vorcha scream let her know that _something_ was still alive out there.

The krogan was getting nervous. It roared in fear and rage and even across the room Miranda could hear its heavy footsteps retreating back to the far corridor, beyond the shutter, where at least there was light. She could just make it out when a dark shape bullrushed it. The krogan raised its shotgun to respond and was enveloped in a cloud of flame. It was Shepard, emotionless, holding down the trigger from an appropriated flamethrower. The alien screamed a terrible hissing shriek and stumbled backwards through the corridor, batting at itself in vain, until all sight of it was lost as the shutter slammed down.

The silence was enormous.

"Sh... Shepard?... Shepard! SHEPARD!"

She gave in at last and, in her haste, clumsily scrabbled for the controls that activated her omnitool's flashlight and flicked it on. Directly in front of her was something so terrible that she screamed.

The black combat armor seemed to blend in and out of the surrounding darkness. Weapons fire had scratched the surface, marked by deeper grooves where claws had torn at it. The entire thing was splattered with orange blood, still dripping down its heavy ceramic plates. It was Shepard.

Shepard too screamed, though in pain, not surprise. Her hands shot to the eye slits of her mask, frantically covering them. The shock of it seemed to break Shepard loose from whatever had turned her this way. She stumbled blindly, in a panic, towards the light of the corridor. Once in the corridor she collapsed, shuddering, each breath a ragged gasp at oxygen. She clawed at her mask, at her eyes, making inarticulate sounds. Slowly they started to rearrange themselves into words.

"m... m... my eyes... I can't... can't see... my eyes..."

Miranda pulled herself together. In retrospect, it was clear what had happened. Somehow Shepard could see better in the darkness. She had demonstrated remarkable night vision, which meant she was gathering in as much light as possible from whatever was available from the corridor, from the glowing ready lights of weapons, even the pilot lights of the flamethrowers. And she, Miranda Lawson, certified genius, had shown a bright light _directly into her eyes_.

"It... it's ok, Shepard." She tried to stabilize her voice, to sound strong. "They'll get better, in a few moments you should be able to again.

The com woke to life.

"Get back here Shepard, they're coming in through the doors."

Shepard gave an inarticulate, guttural snarl, half gasp and half roar of defiance at her own weakness. Whatever had possessed her before, it was back the moment she heard Garrus was threatened. She lunged to her feet, hand already reaching for her Predator, and staggered back down the corridor. With her poor vision she was directed almost as much by bouncing back and forth off the walls as she was with her eyes, and Miranda had no choice but to get caught up in her wake. It didn't even cross her mind to try to stop her.

They made it back just as one of the side walls of the apartment exploded, spilling out vorcha and krogan. Miranda took cover as a massive krogan armed with the obscenely oversized shotgun stalked his way into the building. It was Garm.

Even from this far away she could feel the biotic strength of the krogan coalescing into a protective biotic barrier around him, a skill even she still hadn't mastered. She could throw a destructive warp field of biotic power, and her upgraded omnitool let her overload most shielding systems, but that barrier was just beyond...

Gunfire interrupted her mental side-trip and she mentally herself for getting distracted. Shepard had thrown her more off-balance than she had thought. Shepard's pistol cut through the vorcha, though less accurately than before, while Garrus rained terror down from above, but Jacob was being forced back up the stairs by Garm, who refused to go down. They disappeared from view a few moments before she flashed her biotic power and shredded the last vorcha. Shepard swarmed up the stairs and she followed as quickly as she could.

The first thing she saw was Garm's ridiculous shotgun launch Garrus backwards and over one of the shredded sofas. His shields had held only briefly before flickering out of existence, and dozens of tiny pellets scored deep into his heavy combat armor. The second thing she saw was Shepard lose it. She leveled her own much smaller Katana shotgun, but Garm was quick for his size. He spun almost instantly and unloaded another round at Shepard. Her shields evaporated, but she was far away enough that the pellets didn't penetrate her armor. Didn't _quite_ penetrate it, Miranda amended. The ceramic plates buckled, the paint so hot it started smoking. Miranda screamed for her to get to cover, but she actually started moving _towards_ the krogan. With no shields.

Garm himself seemed surprised to see her on her feet, but that didn't last long. He quickly ejected the spent thermal clip and started to insert another, his eyes never leaving Shepard.

Biotic power rippled across Shepard like a second skin, gathering quickly inwards in a way Miranda had never seen, and Shepard screamed like a banshee as she unleashed all that terrible power in an instant. She moved faster than the blink of an eye, somehow launching _herself_ in the biotic attack, and phased straight through the intervening remnants of the apartments furniture to smash directly into the krogan. He reeled back, stunned, and Shepard pressed in.

She threw all of her weight behind the butt of her shotgun and smashed it into Garm's jaw, shattering it and reeling him even further. Garm backed into the same sofa he'd sent Garrus over and could only look on in stunned surprise as she jammed her Katana into the vulnerable part of his face beneath the plate, straight through his barrier, and pulled the trigger.

A ton of dead krogan and heavy combat armor crashed straight through the remains of the sofa to the floor. Garm was dead.

Garrus scrambled to his feet, shields recharged. He seemed stunned on seeing the dead krogan, and tried to cover his surprise. "Nice shot, Shepard!" If he was concerned that she stood unmoving, panting heavily, he didn't show it. "We took out Garm and his Blood Pack. This day just gets better and better. He was one tough son-of-a-bitch." Jacob and Miranda, who had seen her charge, could only stare at Shepard, speechless.

Shepard seemed to twitch as the silence lengthened, before speaking. She was coming back, and managed to croak out a question though her voice was far from its normal smooth, carefully controlled tone.

"You've fought with him before?"

Garrus collapsed onto the only remaining intact piece of furniture, a low footrest, and covered his eyes with his left hand. "Yeah, we tangled once. Caught him alone, none of his gang to help him. I still couldn't take him out. I've never seen a krogan regen that fast. He's a freak of nature. We just kept at it until his vorcha showed up. It was close, but I had to let him go." He smiled grimly and looked up. "Not this time."

Shepard started to stand up straighter out of her animal crouch, to come back to herself. Even her voice sounded better. Miranda found herself oddly grateful that Shepard's helmet hid her facial expression.

"Only the Blue Suns are left. I say we take our chances and fight our way out."

The sudden roar of heavy turbines and the impossible hum of a mass effect drive, only discernible to biotics, cut off whatever response Garrus would have given. A huge speaker roared over the deep thrum of its twin machine guns.

"Archangel! You think you can screw with the Blue Suns!" They all threw themselves behind cover, but Garrus never didn't make it. The first round from the gunship hit him at a low angle, its exceptional velocity kicking him up into the air where the rest of the burst cut through his shields like butter and slammed through his heavy combat armor. He landed on his knees, blood gushing from multiple punctures in his armor. Everything seemed to stand still for a moment as he reached out towards Shepard with his left hand, his right hanging limply at his side.

"This ends now!" the voiced roared, this time accompanied by a full barrage of heavy rockets. Two slammed into the ground at Garrus' feet, blowing straight through to the lower floor, while a third crashed directly into the wide collar of his armor, detonating on impact and sending Garrus limply skidding across the shattered floor, bouncing off ruined floorboards.

The gunship circled around and started to unload troops on the far side of the balcony.

Shepard, still behind cover, called out to him.

"Garrus. Garrus!" No response.

She stood up, oblivious to the pings of assault rifle rounds on her shields, and the blue glow gathered around her again, spiking strong in her rage.

Miranda opened her mouth to shout a warning before giving it up as a lost cause. Whatever was happening ot Shepard, she was beyond hearing advice. All she could do was catch Jacob's eye, exchange a quick glance that spoke volumes, and level her pistol as Shepard charged into the fray.

It was like setting a sabre-tooth tiger on a pack of hyenas.

By the time the gunship had circled around for another pass all the Blue Suns were down, and Shepard's shotgun was so ruinously overheated it would probably never work again. She tossed it aside, pulled out her pistol, and snarled her anger at the gunship.

Miranda tried desperately to cover Shepard as the Spectre sent round after ineffectual round at the gunship. The madwomen didn't even flinch when the twin machine guns shredded a line of devastation on either side of her that sent Miranda and Jacob diving for the nearest cover.

The gunship swung around to the other window, switching back to rockets.

Shepard seemed to remember that she had significantly heavier firepower on her back than in her hand and switched to her grenade launcher.

It was too much. Miranda huddled beyond the shattered remains of one of the pillars while chaos played out around her. _Nobody _took on a gunship on foot. It was suicide. Yet around her the madness continued, evidence enough of Shepard's skill. Rockets erupted little packets of hell at random throughout the room while the thunder of Shepard's grenade launcher replied. At last the whine of failing turbines sounded sweet relief in her ears and the rain of rockets ceased. She slid out of cover into the skeleton of what had once been an apartment.

Shepard stood at the far end of the room, looking out over the edge of what had once been a wall. She didn't move, almost frozen in place.

Miranda opened her mouth to call out when the gunship's mass effect containment core gave out, and the fireball reached all the way to the balcony to back light Shepard for one awe-inspiring moment.

"Shepard!"

No response.

"Shepard, we need to get Garrus out of here!"

She moved. A shudder ran through her body and she was back at Garrus' side, already calling his name.

The turian's eyes cracked open and he gasped for air, which choked into a gurgle as blood filled his throat. He reached out weakly and latched onto his sniper rifle.

"We're getting you out of here Garrus. Just hold on," Shepard whispered, her voice horribly raw but back to normal. "Jacob, radio Joker, make sure they're ready for us."

Garrus could only cough up blood in reply.

Shepard clung tightly to Garrus' hand, and didn't react to the shocked looks the crew gave her bloodstained form. For once nobody was looking at Miranda at all. They rushed him into the medical bay still clutching his weapon.

Shepard finally let go of Garrus and took a step back as they entered the med bay.

Miranda was so focused on helping Chakwas with Garrus that it took her a moment to look up at Shepard. Not that she was avoiding looking at her. Nothing like that. She was shocked to see that Shepard was unconscious, though whether sleeping or passed out from blood loss was a tough call. On the other hand, after what she'd seen Shepard do she wouldn't have been all that surprised to see her pop back up and demand to go another round with the mercs.

She launched herself towards the unconscious woman, already reaching for the straps on Shepard's armor and calling for assistance, while a small part of her in the back of her mind wondered if this was what passed for normal on the Normandy SR-2.


	9. People Person

Chapter 9: People Person

Doctor Chakwas and her handpicked team stood around the sterilized quarter of the medbay in silence. The tension was palpable as they waited, not knowing what they would face. The com was live as Shepard frantically tried to appraise Archangel's injuries, but her voice rolled over them. She was doing her best, but with no training... still, Chakwas was sure it made Shepard feel better, so she let the drumroll commentary carry on without interruption. Soldiers always felt the need to do something, and she'd long since learned to give them whatever she could.

The whole ship seemed to tense up, as everyone waited...

Waited...

The cockpit exploded into sound loud enough to be heard through the thick bulkhead one floor below, and they knew the crew had returned. Moments later and the turian was run in on a gurney surrounded by Shepard, Miranda, Jacob, and what seemed like half the ship all crowding around two of her doctors who'd met them at the airlock. Each member of the ground team sported their own injuries, and Shepard was beaten badly enough to bleed straight through her combat armor, but it all paled in comparison to the turian.

Chakwas cataloged his injuries, already oblivious to Jacob herding out the rest of the crew and Miranda and Shepard stepping back out of the way.

He groaned, twitching as blue blood dribbled from his mouth and through the holes in his combat armor where the medigel hadn't finished its work yet. A coughing fit shook him weakly as blood clogged up his throat.

He _couldn't_ be alive with injuries like this! And yet he was... for the moment. The lab assistant robotic arms labored frantically, relying half on the scanty information in their databanks and half from on-the-spot observations. Blue blood pumped into him, racing to keep up his blood pressure. Once they'd done what they could most of the robotic limbs retracted and the human teams stepped in.

They peeled his armor off as quickly as they could, cutting it off where it had fused with his body. Chackwas glanced up at the turian cross-section projected on the ceiling above her, desperately trying to get her bearings as they opened him up.

The turian was covered in a metallic exoskeleton of sorts, an evolutionary answer to the weak magnetic field of Palaven, the turian home world, which left native species more exposed to radiation from the system's sun. It protected Archangel, but also made getting access to the delicate skin beneath more difficult. And, rumors to the contrary, that metallic sheathe was no protection from bullets... or missiles.

The damage was staggering. The sheer power of the heavy machine guns had driven the slugs straight through him, combat armor and all, walking a path up his body from left waist to right shoulder, perforating one of his lungs and several arteries she hadn't managed to identify yet. Even as she watched EDI was identifying and projecting labels onto him.

And on top of all that catastrophic damage, a missile had detonated just outside of the collar of his heavy armor, shearing straight through it and tearing a gaping hole through his left mandible and and into the more delicate skin and skull beneath. If he'd been a human it would have gone straight through his skull and back out the other side. Even as it was, the mandible was flopping on a string of skin, and it was yet to be determined if they could save the perforated lung.

Garrus moaned more loudly, and his legs kicked feebly, taloned feet tearing at the clothes of the med team. The medtech arms clamped down on his open and shattered torso to keep him from moving, which only seemed to increase his flailing. His back arched, unconsciously fighting the restraints, and his eyes popped open, though he was so filled with pain-killers it was doubtful he could think rationally at all.

For a fleeting moment she wished they had thought to stock turian anesthetics before she rejected the thought. He was too close to the edge – knocking him out would be just as likely to kill him as spare him pain.

Garrus' arms started to grope, quickly gaining strength, and he lashed out compulsively. Suarez, the nearest doctor, had been looking up at the projection and missed Archangel's swing, which smashed into his chest and dropped him to the floor gasping for air. The rest of the med team leaped back in fear. They could only watch from a distance as his heart rate spiked and vital signs dipped lower as blood poured out of him, pumped faster through his body as he thrashed.  
>In a moment inspiration struck, and Chakwas turned to look at Shepard who was busy looking haunted and powerless against the wall. "Shepard, give me his gun!"<p>

Shepard gave her a look that clearly questioned her sanity, but handed over the (safely unloaded) monster weapon.

Chakwas danced in towards Garrus holding out the heavy rifle as far as she could until his taloned fingers encountered it. He pulled with surprising strength, snatching the weapon out of her grasp. As soon as he had it he slumped back down, docile once again. The team gazed at each other in stunned silence for an endless moment, and dashed back into the fray.

Well, I can at least tell you what happened to her eyes." It was hours later, and they'd finally come out of surgery. Dr. Chakwas sat, eyes bleary with exhaustion, with Miranda at her little desk in the Medical Bay. Both of them watched the still forms of Commander Shepard and Garrus on adjoining hospital beds. It wasn't until the team had moved on to Archangel's face and mandible that she'd actually been able to recognize him, but the shock had only slowed her for a moment.

"As you yourself informed me, her injuries when you acquired her were severe, and most of her exposed tissue was destroyed, including her eyes and the more delicate parts of her ears. They were replaced by synthetics which you set to mimic standard human eyesight and hearing. However, when I examined her after stabilizing Mr. Vakarian, her pupils were still dilated 50% larger than a normal person's are for the lighting here on the Normandy, and she was reacting to sounds softer than the human ear should be able to hear. Both were slowly returning to normal, however, and are currently back at standard levels. Though without additional evidence I can't prove it, I'm almost positive that the Commander somehow managed to change the settings on her eyes, dilating them farther than any normal human and giving her ears more sensitivity than any normal human. I doubt she did it on purpose, however."

"That's clear, Doctor, but _how_ did she do it? I know Shepard's capabilities literally inside and out, and nothing I know about her could have predicted this."

Chakwas smiled tiredly.

"Perhaps you underestimated the enormity of being brought back from the dead. That's never happened before." She sighed and turned to look straight into Miranda's eyes, willing her to see. "Executive Lawson, for the Commander what you did was no normal surgery. When she woke up, those were her eyes, her ears. It is doubtful she can even recall what it was like beforehand. Perhaps to her, she is simply adjusting her eyes as unconsciously as you or I focus ours."

"Perhaps." Miranda stared off into space for a moment, lost in her thoughts, before abruptly turning away and heading for the door. "Thank you for your time, Dr. Chakwas," she called over her shoulder.

_ The power flickered on and off fitfully for a few moments before giving out all together. She knew then, right at that moment, that this was big. A full-scale invasion at best, a planetary bombardment at worst. It was funny, really, the little things you kept on noticing when something so big you can't quite grasp it is happening. She could feel every little patch of condensation she hadn't quite reached with her towel. She felt a droplet slide down her neck from her still-damp hair. She noticed with a mild sense of irritation that seemed somehow outside her, exterior, that the air-conditioning had died again, before it hit her that it was because of the power loss. Somehow, that little penetration into her own world made it all real. _

_ The air was dead, the fridge was dead, the complimentary computer console was dead. Everything with a battery would last until it died, then there'd be no recharging. Her omnitool had about an hour's charge left, then she'd have no communication._

_ Her thoughts started to run their course while she dragged on her uniform, like a computer on start up, they began slowly but quickly picked up speed. The training was kicking in. _

_ She pulled her bag over her shoulder and dashed outside, even as she frantically tried to hail the Alliance base. She was getting nothing but static, which meant at least moderate jamming. A very bad sign. She dashed into the street and saw people everywhere, all watching the sky. She followed their gaze upwards and saw what had captured their attention... an entire fleet of small assault craft was heading down through the upper atmosphere, their prows incandescent from re-entry. Far above the assault shuttles a battle raged furiously in near space, extending even down into upper atmosphere. Lights flashed quickly, and the little sparks like fireworks were the deaths of thousands of crew. It was too far away to figure out which side was which. It all would have been beautiful, if she hadn't had a sinking feeling about the purpose of those assault craft headed not towards the spaceport, but towards the city._

_"Everyone get inside. Now!"_

_ That certainly got the crowds attention. "You have to get inside immediately, you're in terrible danger, please, move into this hotel now!"_

_ The crowd, a mixture of aliens from across the galaxy dominated by humans, was slow to respond. Some seemed outright incredulous, others started to panic. In retrospect, maybe not the best thing she could have said. No time to fix it now._

_ Shepard dashed about, all but pushing people back towards their houses and hotel lobbies. They obeyed, but they all wanted to lean back, to catch another glimpse of the light show above. _

_ "Hurry hurry hurry, into my hotel, hurry hurry..." She finished urging an asari inside who looked affronted at her lack of respect when the ships became close enough to make out. Nothing larger than frigates, and thankfully only a bare handful of those, but they disgorged a flood of assault shuttles which charged downwards with reckless speed. The ground seemed to heave as the defense towers fired, sending people stumbling or outright falling to the ground. Shepard tripped over the prone form of another human and went down hard. _

_ Three of the assault boats took direct hits and exploded spectacularly, but the towers were relics of the colony's early days before the more effective fixed defenses in space went live and there weren't enough of them to stop this mad charge._

_ Shepard made a run back towards the hotel, ears ringing, as the crowds finally reacted. A primal cry, a mix of horror and shock, seemed to slowly rev up as they finally grasped their danger and started to stampede in all directions. The assault boats finally got into range, and the world trembled as they opened up. There was no subtlety to their tactics, and they let loose their cluster-bombs on the defense towers, heedless of anything built up nearby. _

_ By the time Shepard had regained her feet enough dust was thrown up into the air from the impact that it was hard to see, and it clung to her uniform and hair. Her thinking was strangely, icily clear despite the chaos around her. They wouldn't go after the obviously civilian targets unless they wanted to kill everyone, in which case they were already dead anyways, so their best shot was to hole up in the hotel._

_ At last she made it and turned, surprised to see a sizeable crowd of people had followed her lead. She ushered them in as quickly as she could, keeping an eye to the sky even as she did. The lead frigate, of batarian design, changed its trajectory slightly and lined up on the spaceport._

_ "Get down!"_

_ The front end of the frigate seemed to catch fire as it let fly a volley of energy torpedos. The shockwave from the explosion was actually visible, giving Shepard a half-second warning before it hit. Even lying on the floor the shockwave was intense. The ground bucked up beneath her, launching her into the air before slamming her back down. Her face hit hard._

_Shepard bit off a curse and immediately turned to check on the civilians. There were a good forty-odd sentients there, and most seemed to have hit the deck in time to avoid serious injury. She felt something hot run down her face._ _With a sigh of frustration she smeared it away before it could get into her eyes. _

_ The broad front windows were a shattered ruin, leaving shards of glass everywhere. Shepard kept a steadying hand on the wall and peaked out into the outside world. _

_ It had changed. _

_ A massive pillar of smoke and fire was all that could be seen of the spaceport, and all that remained of her armor and weapons. The defense towers, too, were gone, as well as everything within a block radius of them. The blasts had sent up enough dust and smoke that the day seemed darker than it should have been. She brought her arm across her mouth in a vain effort to keep from coughing. Still, for all the devastation it was oddly quiet. It took a moment to catch why._

_ Through the filthy air it was difficult to catch, but the assault shuttles were dropping to the ground all over the city, disgorging knots of heavily armed troops of some kind. What was odd about it, however, was that the shuttles weren't standardized – half of them seemed to be their own unique model, while the rest represented species from across the galaxy. Not a good sign. If they weren't real military, and there were no military targets aside from the base, what were they still doing here? They hadn't just blasted the city into glass, which mean they wanted _something_... Oh. They wanted the only thing left._

_ They were slavers._

_ As if in answer to her thoughts, screams started to erupt across the city as the slavers went about their business. Shepard turned back to the people inside the lobby, who were visibly shaken by the trauma of the last few minutes. Had it only been minutes? Time to get this lot into gear, give them something to do..._

_ She slid back towards them._

_ "Alright, who here as any military or police training?" Three hands went up across the room, two asari and a salarian. "Alright, I want you three on watch near the windows, but stay as out of sight as you can. The minute you see something you drop back and let me know through my com. There's jamming, but at this close of range it shouldn't make any difference. You still have your omnitools?" It turned one of the asari did not, and the salarian's seemed to be broken. She turned to the asari's who's still worked._

_ "Alright, match your com frequency to mine. What's you're name?"_

_ "Elenia." Her voice came out strong, unwavering._

_ "Ok Elenia, I'm Lieutenant Shepard. Were you with a mercenary outfit?"_

_ "No, I worked with C-Sec before retiring thirty years ago."_

_ "Ok, for now, you're in charge of these civilians, and these two are your assistants. Get them as far inside and under cover as you can, and I'll be in contact with you as best I can."_

_ "Wait, you're not seriously going out there are you?"_

_ Shepard shrugged. "We need to get into contact with somebody else. It's only a matter of time until they find us here."_

_ The salarian broke in. "No weapons, no armor, hopeless against mercenaries..." _

_ "I'll make do, now get to work. See if anyone has any medical training and have them deal with those in shock or cut up from the explosions. Just try and keep them calm!"_

_ Even as she finished speaking Shepard was moving back out into the smoky light. The other three returned deeper into the building and at last she could focus completely on the scene around her. _

_ It was darker than it should be, and the sounds of distant explosions made it clear the light wouldn't be getting better any time soon. First, however, she needed a weapon. What the salarian had said was true, if this had been an open fight. But this was far from that... this was a fight she knew. This was a gang fight.  
><em>Shepard snapped awake from her dream, her entire body clenched up in combat readiness, and had her pistol drawn and aimed in an instant. There was nothing to see.

She shuddered, lowering the pistol as her body slowly unknotted itself. She was here. She was now... Elysium was long gone, long past. Her right shoulder spasmed again at the thought. _Huh. I guess I really am still me, still Shepard._ She threw the thought away and climbed out of bed. The covers were on the floor, the sheets a snarled knot. She couldn't recall getting into her t-shirt and running shorts, or even back to her room, but that seemed to be par for the course these days. It was still an hour before the scheduled start of her day, but she wanted to stay as far from Elysium as she could. Besides, five hours was more than enough sleep. What she needed _now _was someone to distract her from the images still fighting to play out before her eyes. Images and memories she'd thought she'd left behind long ago.

Wandering around the crew deck looking for someone to talk to because she had nightmares was too pathetic for a leader, and way too much information for anyone else anyways. And Garrus would still be out, completely isolated for the time being. He was stable though, that was something. Hmmmm. She could go to CIC without too many comments. Miranda was still on duty as XO, and Joker might be there too. It would have to do.

There were only a few people on duty in the CIC, the pale glow of their monitors providing most of the illumination as the running lights were off during the ships "night" cycle. As expected, Miranda was on station overlooking the deck while running through something on her omnitool. Probably reports, if first impressions of Miranda proved true.

Shepard moved quietly, but CIC was still enough to hear the distant thrum of the drive core, not to mention the soft patter of her bare feet on the deck. Shepard struck first to try to stave off any comments on her irregular attire and frazzled hair. Did Miranda ever not look perfectly put together?

"Anything I should know about the Normandy?" Not the most creative, but it sounded official enough.

Miranda only paused a half beat before responding with her usual business-like attitude. "The crew's working well, and the ship appears to be performing to specifications." She was quick, but she also wasn't really giving Shepard anything to work with. The equivalent of a polite "get-to-the-point."

This again. Great. Well, why not? Maybe she'd be more forthcoming.

"What exactly are your duties here, aside from keeping an eye on me?"

"I'm the Illusive Man's agent. You're his most important asset. My job is to make sure you succeed." Tight and clipped, only stating the obvious.

Shepard fought the urge to roll her eyes. _Thank you Miranda_. At last, however, she started to crack a little bit. Maybe it was the big puffy bags under Shepard's eyes that convinced her Shepard wasn't there to catch her in a mistake.

"...Aside from that... I send regular reports to the Illusive Man, updating our status."

In spite of Shepard's shaken mental state she couldn't help but smile just a bit. _Uh oh, the Ice Queen has a gap in her defenses_. _Time to press the advantage... _

"Look Miranda, can't we just talk for a bit?"

She relented with a soft sigh. "Alright. I imagine you've got a lot of questions." She didn't quite return the smile, but it was a start. "Cerberus isn't as evil as most people think, and it's important that you, more than most, understand that."  
>"I know what we're doing here, but what's Cerberus' long-term goal? What's your end goal?"<br>Miranda seemed a little surprised she didn't know. "The advancement of the human race, nothing more, nothing less. The salarians have the Special Tasks Group. The asari have their commandos. Cerberus is our answer to those organizations."

Shepard squinted an eye at her. "That's what you say in your recruitment posters, I'm sure, but I'm not asking that. If the Illusive Man is really running the show, what does _he_ want to see happen?"

Miranda looked a little more hesitant now. "Well... to catch up with the others. We need _somebody_ who can fight on even terms with the best out there. Surely you don't disagree?"

"I'm not saying I disagree, but the real question is if the Illusive Man's looking for parity with everyone else or if he's looking to dominate them, to have them at our mercy."

Miranda arched a single delicate eyebrow. "I'm not following Shepard. In practical terms it doesn't matter. They're all looking for every advantage they can get. The only way to play on even terms is to do the same thing, so in the end it's a matter of semantics."

"No, Miranda, it's not."

She bristled, obviously unused to being told flat-out she was wrong, but Shepard plowed on before she could cut in.

"Your motivations do a lot to change the way you approach problems. If your goal is just to win, the answer is to cheat every time, to take advantage of people every time it's convenient, to give in to short-term convenience. Tell me _that_ doesn't sound like some of the little experiments of yours I've stumbled across."

She folded her arms and gave Miranda a glare for good measure.

True, Shepard, but look at it this way. The STG and the asari are backed by representative governments that have a regular turnover. They have as much pressure on them to push the borders of what's acceptable as we do. In fact, they have _more _pressure on them, because we're privately funded. If we stray from our stated goals we'll lose our funding. So in a sense, we answer to all of humanity where they answer to their powerbase."

_Yeah, a very __**loose**__ sense..._

As much as Shepard wanted to disagree, it was already clear they were starting to argue in circles. Time to set it aside, at least for the moment.

"Well if we're going to be blindly following his lead, then what can you tell me about the Illusive Man?"  
>Miranda shrugged, letting Shepard's needling pass. "Not much that you don't already know. It's rare for him to become directly involved in missions, but you're something special. But, whatever else people might say about him, I can assure you he's got humanity's best interests at heart. That includes you and me."<p>

_But not necessarily anybody else?_ That explained a lot, really. Make your followers feel like they're the only non-expendable people when everything and everyone else was, and you'd get a lot of loyalty quickly. Only, that usually happened right before you betrayed and killed everybody involved. She was bright, though, right? I mean, she brought somebody back from the dead, she had to see through that... or did she?

"How can you be sure of that, if you know so little about him?"  
>She bristled a bit at that one, probably thinking Shepard was questioning her judgment. "I didn't get to where I am without knowing how to gauge people's motives and ambitions. Even from brief encounters. He's no saint, and he'll be the first to admit it, but he is committed. Humanity couldn't have a better advocate."<p>

Uh huh. The long hand equivalent of "trust me." Another dead end, and the conversation wouldn't last much longer going as it was. Change of tactics.

"Well, you're here and he's not. So, if you don't mind, tell me a little about yourself Miranda." To her credit, she didn't bat an eye at the abrupt change of topics.

"I guess that's fair, I've spent the last two years learning everything there is to know about you." She looked down at the floor for a moment before continuing. "Well you should probably know that I've had extensive genetic modification. It's one of the reasons the Illusive Man handpicked me. I'm very good at just about anything I choose to do."

_Now we're getting somewhere. _

"Well, you certainly don't lack for confidence."  
>Miranda shrugged again, this time looking irritated. "It's just a fact, Shepard... My reflexes, my strength, even my looks - they're all designed to give me an edge. No point in hiding from it. It's the reason I'm trusted to oversee the most dangerous, risky, and technically demanding operations Cerberus undertakes. And it's why I was assigned to you. It's <em>my<em> job to make sure you succeed, Shepard."

Which, of course, was always harder than doing something yourself. It was like they were taunting her, really. Here, Shepard, here's the best of humanity, here is what Cerberus has produced. Just look at this stunning, talented, intelligent woman, with curves in all the right places, and perfectly styled black hair. She looked like one of those airbrushed girls on the vid commercials. In fact, she's you're XO, so you _have_ to look at her every day. And, after seeing that, take a look in the mirror and tell us Cerberus isn't better.

Well, the mirror certainly didn't lie in that respect. She glanced at her reflection off the bulkhead and winced. Her athletic shorts and loose t-shirt were wrinkled from sleep, and her hair was a wreck. Half of it seemed to have escaped from her ponytail, now off balance. Deep, puffy bags under her eyes showed just how little sleep she had gotten.

She tried to keep the self-pity out of her voice. "Sounds like you were designed to be perfect."

Oddly, Miranda's eyes flashed in a hint of anger at that.

"I may have been _designed_ to be perfect, Shepard, but I'm not. I make mistakes like everyone else, and when I do, the consequences are severe. Everyone expects a lot from someone with my... abilities."

She gave the smallest shake of her head, as if suddenly realizing she'd said more than she intended, and fell silent.

Shepard forgot her moping for a moment in thinking through Miranda's comment. _Wait a minute, __**it's**__ pretty impressive? What have we here?_

She filed the thought away for later.

"Thanks for the talk Miranda. I'll see you later."

"Of course, Commander. Whatever you need." The words were polite, but her thoughts were obviously elsewhere.

Time to escape, but after finally getting Miranda to relax a bit she didn't want to make it look like she really had come down here just to talk to her. Who else was around?

Joker was, not unusually, still in the pilots seat well after shift's end. His relief pilot, Thierry, was used to it now, and usually hung out on the crew deck chatting it up with one of the Cerberus girls from plotting. Just another upside to being in the pilots seat; access to all those little cameras. Or at least most of them. He was pretty sure there were some he didn't have access to. It would be like Cerberus to-

The sound of approaching footsteps drew him out of his musings.

"Everything all right up here in the cockpit?"

The sound of her voice always made him wince a little, just a poignant little reminder of his own piloting imperfection. Damn it, couldn't he do just _one_ thing right?

"Uh, yeah, we're all good up here Commander." He turned his chair around to face her and managed to restrain his surprise to a single raised eyebrow. Ok, maybe he looked her up and down once. In surprise, you know? "Do you normally wander around at all hours of the night asking crew-members how their days went? 'Cause I don't remember you ever doing it before."

She seemed to retreat, her eyes grew harder, and he berated himself for being an idiot. _You're supposed to be making it up to her, not getting her even angrier at you! It's a miracle she's willing to talk to you at all!_

"I mean, not that I mind it, having a superior officer looking over my shoulder all the time, it's just-"

"Carry on, Helmsman."

And she was gone.

…

_Shit._

Shepard regretted stomping off about two seconds too late to go back. It was Joker, of course he'd make a joke out of it! There was no need to get so defensive! It was just that he saw through her so easily. It wasn't like she normally wandered around in her pajamas looking like death warmed over, but she'd lasted two sentences before he cut through her charade to ask about what was really bothering her. It was too close to home, too fast.

But that was just because she was a freak and didn't let anybody really talk to her.

What a jerk. The only two friends she had in the galaxy and she'd let one get hit by a missile and stormed off on the other one, all within a single day. She was on better terms with the Illusive Man for crying out loud. She might as well just give it up now and go out to kill something. It seemed to be the only thing she was good at anymore.

She wandered back up to her cabin feeling even worse than before.


	10. Memories

Chapter Notes: Sorry it's been so long since my last update. I've had finals, an incredibly busy vacation, started a new semester, and kinda-sorta gotten into a relationship since then. My Beta has been equallly busy, if not in the same ways. Still, we're hanging in there and I plan to finish this out. As a reward for your patience, instead of breaking this up into smaller chapters I've kept it entire, my longest chapter to date.

WARNING: Shepard was in a gang. The vast majority of males, and virtually all females in gangs are/have been sexually abused. It's so taboo that it's not even in hard-core gangster rap, which tries to glamorize a terrible and usually miserable life. Shepard does not walk away unscarred, and as it's a significant and formative part of her character (her issues with Jacob, her issues with people touching her, etc.) I've included some of her experiences. On the advice of my beta I've toned it down, but it's still there. You have been warned.

Chapter 10: Memories

**Elysium**

Shepard slid out into the raining ash and made her way into the alleyways as quickly as she could. The troops, whoever they were, would be broken up in smaller groups there. All those mismatched assault craft could only mean this was some sort of coalition, and if they were willing to hit a defended colony they weren't your standard mercs. They were the angry ones, the ones with grudges and not much to loose. They were people who didn't get along very well with others, so they were almost certainly splitting the city into zones and more or less giving them free rein. Now, the simplest way was to let the major intersections be the dividers. That, then, was where she needed to be. But first...

It wasn't hard to find a group of mercs. All you had to do was follow the clatter of small arms fire. She headed towards the sound, fighting her way through the scattered civilians running in the opposite direction. As she dodged form building to building she caught sight of one of the frigates, hovering watchfully over this section of city. It was batarian, which probably meant slaver, which gave her a few options. It took her an entire block to realize that they would probably shoot anyone in alliance fatigues on sight instead of trying to capture them. She needed street clothes.

She tried the next apartment door she saw. It was unlocked, thankfully, in its residents haste to flee.

She shut the door carefully and locked it, taking the time to use both locks. She was being stupid, wasting time, and she knew it. In the middle of a planetary invasion and she was worried someone might see her! Still, she shuttered every window before heading into the bedrooms. The first was a boys room, judging from the clothes and the posters of scantily clad women scattered about the room. She ripped the nearest poster down in disgust. Time, Shepard, time.

Luckily, the other other bedroom had an entire old-fashioned chest-of-drawers filled with clothing. She quickly pawed through it, looking for anything that seemed remotely her size. She had just stripped down to her underwear when the door shattered.

This was not the plan.

The room didn't offer a lot of hiding places. A low bed she couldn't fit under, the chest-of-drawers flush against the wall, and a door...

She shoved her uniform beneath the bed and slid through the door as quickly as she could, not quite shutting the door so it wouldn't make any noise. It was a bathroom, and it was tiny; an open shower, toilet and sink all crammed into the place. If they looked, she was dead.

She flipped off the light.

Outside heavy footsteps sounded... too heavy. They had combat armor. She heard a buzzing sound. It was meaningless, garbled, but the standard issue cochlear implant in her ear translated the sound into words.

"Search this one, and be quick about it. We need to hurt these humans bad enough to kick 'em back out of the Verge."

She translated the dulled noises as best she could. Someone rifling through a desk. Dumping food out from the refrigerator, or maybe the pantry. The heavy, wooden drawers being ripped out and tossed on the floor.

"All clear."

She sagged in relief.

"Wait..."

The door was wrenched open, and the sudden light stunned her. The dull outline of a big humanoid stood over her, and-

_Jake sneered down at her, huddled and pathetic in the bathroom._

All the training, all the fight, went out of her in an instant.

"Hey, we got another one in here."

Another form appeared, face shadowed by the lights behind it.

"Ha, and conveniently without clothing. Get her out in the light where I can see her."

She huddled down in abject terror, forcing the nearer form to reach out and lift her. She shuddered violently all over, queasy from the physical contact. She was in the light, in the bedroom, and she couldn't make herself look up at them, keeping her gaze on their armored feet as they led her out in front of the bed.

_Jake held her unsteadily, his breath reeking of cheap alcohol, while the others hooted in the background._

"Hmph, what do you think?"

"She's decent." One of the forms prodded her chest. "Not Class A though, I'd give her a B. You know what the boss said, only A's on this trip. Lots to choose from and no time. Let's get out of here."

_She was on the bed, her weak arms pressed against the rough, single blanket. His hand clumsily stroked across her body while the other arm held her pinned. She struggled, but she was too weak, too weak. She seemed to be separating, breaking into little pieces. She could hear something tearing, ripping, and she couldn't do anything and it hurt it hurt make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop make it-_

Shepard snapped back. She wasn't on the bed. It wasn't Jake. It was a batarian, and he was aiming the pistol. But she wasn't a little girl anymore.

Her body was so filled with adrenaline, her muscles so tight, that she struck like a viper. Half step left, right hand to wrist, left hand to pistol, change the angle. The pistol kicked, burning her fingers, but she didn't feel it as the round passed over her right shoulder. She wrenched the pistol from the batarian's nerveless fingers and stepped into him as his two fellows opened fire.

The batarian screamed as the close-range fire ripped his back to shreds. She ducked down, letting the dying alien slouch over her like a shield, and returned fire. Her rounds hit the right batarian's shield hard, bouncing him back a half-step at a time until he hit the wall. His shields gave out and she fired until the pistol overheated, sending tiny metallic slugs shredding through him and into the wall behind him.

The last batarian panic-fired, spraying rounds across the room, until he too overheated.

She let the dead batarian slide off her, leaving her slick with its blood and alone with the last slaver. She charged him, snap-kicking his pistol hand and sending his weapon clattering to the floor. He was quick, though. Before she could disengage completely and open the range he was after her, a switch blade seeming to materialize in his hands. His four black eyes locked on hers, his teeth bared in a predatory snarl. She backed away steadily, keeping her eyes on his hands, swaying away from each blow as her pistol vented heat. She would have been helpless without a weapon, had she been a marine. But she was not.

In this fight, she was an Angel.

Her pistol was almost ready to fire. It was coming now, any moment... He made a desperate lunge, but she had already stepped back. He fell forward, fully extended and vulnerable, and she grabbed his outstretched wrist and pulled. Her generously donated momentum sent him staggering to the floor. She sidestepped his fall, cleanly sliding in behind him and leveling her pistol at his exposed head. The pistol barked once.

She curled in on herself, dropping down to the balls of her feet, arms wrapped around her knees. She'd just killed three people. She'd had to, but she'd killed them. It was what she'd trained for, prepared for, even wished for in the Angeles, but she'd never done it before. She shivered all over and nausea wracked her stomach, but the hammer of automatic fire in the distance brought her back to her senses.

She never let go of the pistol.

There was no time, no time, and she scrambled over to the batarian she'd just killed. She was grateful, in a way, to the chaos. It kept her from feeling, from thinking, which was the last thing she wanted to do now.

She peeled the armor piece by piece off the batarian, never letting her eyes stray from the door. It took a few minutes, but soon she was dressed in the horribly ill-fitting, yet functional, batarian combat armor. A moment later and she'd collected their weapons, another two pistols and three assault rifles. She checked the makes. All of it was batarian State Arms issue. The rifles were Terminators, a fair mid-ranged brand. The pistols were labeled Judgment. Fitting.

* * *

><p>Shepard sat up with a gasp, frantically rubbing at her face to get the sticky blood off. It took a moment to figure out where she was, what had woken her up. The alarm clock buzzed again, but her gratitude was limited as she felt a massive sleep-deprivation headache coming on. She felt awful, physically and mentally. Still, she had a job to do. No rest for the wicked. She reached out to turn off the alarm, and noticed that her hands were still covered in blood.<p>

A brief moment of intense dislocation followed, where anything and everything was in the air, before her brain caught up to her. She dashed over to the mirror in her tiny private restroom to look at the damage. It wasn't pretty.

She took the time to really examine her face closely. The gaping wounds that lined her face and rounded her left eye, spiderwebbing out, were starting to heal, if slowly. They still hurt. A lot. The abrasion near her left eye was still bad and had burst open again in her sleep, leaving a smeared blood trail down to her neck. Miranda made her look bad at the best of times, but this... well at least she wouldn't have to worry about anybody hitting on her this mission. Look for the bright side, right? Even her mental voice sounded exhausted, disconnected. Dead.  
>Her shower went longer than she intended, as she found she didn't quite have the energy to reach for the soap for several long minutes. She did <em>not<em> want to start this day. But, damn it, she had committed to doing it. Maybe the Illusive Man was right and only she could do it, or maybe he wasn't. It was a moot point, now. She kept her commitments, even if she'd been forced into a corner before she would make them.

The team gathered at the conference room. So far, that consisted of only Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob. Garrus was still comatose. She'd gone to check with Chackwas before heading to the conference room. Her armor was back on, it's black surface now marred by the remains of dried krogan blood she couldn't quite work out of the nooks and crannies, and the scrapes and nicks courtesy of a whole host of assorted claws and projectiles.

"Alright Miranda, let's hear what you have on this Professor of yours." She tried to keep the long-suffering tone in her head from reaching her voice. Either she succeeded or Miranda missed it. Either way worked.

Miranda hit a couple of keys and a holo of a salarian appeared above the briefing room. It rotated slowly, revealing a few identifying features. Most noticeably, the salarian's right horn had at some point been sheared off half-way up.

"Dr. Mordin Solus is a biological weapons expert who was scooped up by the salarian Special Tasks Group, their equivalent of the Citadel's Spectres, a short time after the Genophage was released on Tuchanka, and we've confirmed several missions to Tuchanka itself, the krogan homeworld. We think these are connected. If the doctor has the technical expertise to be trusted with something as challenging and high-priority as the Genophage, he might be able to help us deal with the Collectors' advanced technology. In terms of weapons training, the STG is mostly a covert-action group. As such, he doesn't have much experience in stand-up fights, but is an expert in light weapons. He's currently operating a medical clinic in the slums of Omega."

Shepard cut back in. "Aside from that, Aria said he's down in a quarantine zone, so we're going in fully suited up. Once we're inside, we ask around until we find him. Unless you can think of a better plan..." She tried not to look in Miranda's direction. Alright, let's go."

Despite appearances, the Cerberus crew had not been idle while they had gone off gallivanting through the underbelly of Omega. Several crew members, acting on the Illusive Man's orders, had managed to buy them some higher-quality weapons on Omega's famed black market.

The armory was very clean, which Shepard immediately credited to Jacob, the Armory Officer. Tables were laid out with the new weapons. The older, standard weapons of which the ship possessed far more were stored on racks beneath each table, no space wasted.

There were three new models. The M-96 Mattock, a powerful semi-automatic assault rifle was certainly a beast. Jacob was particularly interested in those, but as she normally didn't carry assault rifles... The next table over held the M-5 Phalanx, a heavy pistol that packed far more punch than the norm. It was difficult to aim, however, despite its laser sight. It was perfect for close quarters, where it could cut through armor with a single, powerful round. The thing was more of a cannon than a pistol. She traded out the M-3 on her hip without hesitation.

The final new arrival was the M-22 Eviscerator, a heavy shotgun with a three-shot semi-automatic clip. It was a monster weapon, and she definitely needed something to replace the burned-out Katana. Perfect. It folded in on itself nicely and fit in the small of her back, clamped to the magnetic grapple designed for the purpose.

They headed for the airlock, and Shepard studiously avoided looking in Jokers direction, despite the cockpit being within arms reach. The last thing she needed before a mission was to start going over her own stupidity.

The two ex-marines snapped to attention with much more alacrity than they'd demonstrated last time. She must have made quite the impression coming back, dripping blood everywhere and towing along a dying turian sniper. Their M-8's even had a polish on them now! They were starting to look more like the respectable marines they had once been and less like Cerberus guard dogs.

"Commander."  
>She nodded in their direction.<p>

"Let's go find this professor."

* * *

><p>Garrus woke with a start, eyes darting everywhere as he tried to pull himself to his feet. His limbs felt leaden and most of the feeling in his face was gone. His mind frantically scrambled to connect the strange white blur around him with the combat and gore of a few seconds ago, made all the more difficult thanks to the muddled mess that was his thinking. Shepard had been there, but where was she now? Where was he? He glanced down at himself. And what the hell had happened to his combat armor? He felt naked without it, despite the towel draped over him.<p>

The rising panic was stifled when he caught sight of his rifle leaned up against his bed. He picked it up, feeling the familiar weight, the slight grooves his fingers had worn into the grip. Just holding it was a huge comfort, even without a thermal clip in it. He began to sit up, this time managing it despite the rush of blood and an intense sense of vertigo. He just breathed, in and out, in and out, while his vision slowly sorted itself out.

He tried to think rationally, to sort it out. Shepard wasn't there, which could only mean a couple of things. She could have gone on to do something important, leaving him somewhere safe. Or she was dead and he was captured. His mind blanked, refusing even to consider the latter. If so, why give him back his rifle? Unless it was to keep him from killing himself while something more sinister awaited him? Only one way to find out.

He slid gently to his feet, which gave out from under him. Only a quick grab at the edge of the bed kept him from falling to the floor in a heap. His left leg slid back out, a little more stable this time. Then his right. Slowly, cautiously, he eased his grip on the bed. A step later he felt a tug on his wrist, and looked down to see its source, a drip bag on wheels. Probably best to leave that in, for the moment. It squeaked gently as it rolled along in his wake. First on the priorities were heat-sinks. A close second was clothes.

It only took two stumbling steps to discover the charred wreckage of his combat armor. Lifting it was out of the question, so he slid (he _didn't_ fall, he never fell) to the floor to examine it.

The door wooshed open and he whirled around to face it. At least, that's what he told his body to do. In reality he managed to twist about half-way around. A human medic, if the white lab coat and panicky look were to be believed, kept tearing his gaze back and forth Garrus on the floor and the blinking monitors above.

"Uh, Garrus... er, Mr Archangel, sir, you really should lie down on the bed."

Garrus shrugged, mildly amused. "Look, I'm down here resting and everything. Give me a minute."

With that he proceeded to ignore the man. If something were going truly wrong he would have mentioned it. Back to his armor.

Well, it would never be pretty again. Nor, if the armor's condition was any indicator, would he. The real question, of course, was would it be recoverable? His six fingers danced over the suit's diagnostics with the confidence born of long practice.

The gaping hole in the armor's collar was, appearances aside, mostly cosmetic. All of the crucial, delicate components lay over the vital organs. You wouldn't miss the power generator at the small of your back if your spine was snapped, and if something hit you hard enough to outright destroy the shield generator at your waist, you'd probably be more concerned about the gap where your legs used to be.

That didn't say anything about gunships though, which simply went through anything combat armor could throw up defensively. To stand up to that kind of fire you had to have the defenses of a light battle tank at least, so armor manufacturers hadn't even tried. The heavy rounds had punched straight through both the front and back or his armor, completely destroying the shield generator, the air scrubbers, and the medigel dispenser. It would probably be cheaper to replace the whole thing rather than repair it.

He'd taken some heavy hits over the years, but nothing like this. It had been a close thing. Very close. By rights he should be dead. Deserved to be dead.

Absently he noted the medic was gone, probably to go looking for his superior.

Garrus leaned back against the bed's legs to think, the only indication he was still alive the occasional twitch of his mandibles.

It was hard to say where it had all gone wrong.

Working with Shepard on the Normandy and chasing down Saren and destroying the Reaper Sovereign with its plans for galactic extermination had been the best days of his life. He still held that quitting Citadel Security and their stultifying regulations to join Shepard's crew was the best single decision he'd ever made. They were doing something that challenged him, pushed his limits, and actually mattered. It was any turian's dream. Self improvement in the service of the species was deeply engrained in the psyche of every turian, and he'd actually gotten to live it. That experience was of far more value than the fame that had accompanied it.

And then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

Shepard died over Alchera, and he found himself old news, broke, and unemployed. C-Sec had taken him back with open arms, his success and the publicity he'd brought them overwriting his bitter exit a few months prior.

It wasn't the same.

Despite his frustrations with the amount of bureaucracy and red tape, he'd always found satisfaction in arresting criminals, bringing people to justice. No more.

Oh the emotional bits still touched him, rescuing people, telling relatives you'd caught their loved one's killer, that sort of thing But when he sat alone at his desk late at night because he had nowhere else to go, no one else to see, it always hit him. He wasn't simply frustrated, he was trapped.

This, the desk, the job, the life, none of it felt like it had mattered anymore. He'd helped save the _galaxy_. It was a heady thing, but when it came down to it, it just made everything else he'd done, everything he did every day, seem hopelessly trivial. He felt... unfulfilled. He had more left to give, more good years before he could in good conscience settle down and start telling his stories. Leaving something, even a life, unfinished, unspent, was anathema to him.

Late one night at the precinct, trying to sort out wildly differing accounts of how a quarian had simultaneously been begging in the streets, setting fire to a business and robbing a human in three different places, it hit him. He couldn't do it anymore. Then and there, almost without thought, the decision was made. He left the work on his desk unfinished and went back to his sparse, lonely apartment (Not that the female population hadn't tried to populate it. He wasn't against casual physical relationships, but these girls couldn't care less who he actually was, and he'd had little patience for them.).

It took only a moment to pack up what he needed. A few changes of clothing. His armor. His rifle. He didn't bother locking the apartment door. A stop at the nearest bank drained his account of the little he'd saved up. He took the first shuttle he'd found, and didn't look back.

There had been an extranet article on him.

"Garrus Vakarian, part of Commander Shepard's team, mysteriously vanishes. Is the galaxy in jeopardy again? Read inside for opinions by those closest to him, including Captain Bailey, Executor Pallin, and..."

It had stung a bit, that those "closest" to him were from work, not his family. Apparently they'd declined to comment. He'd "disappeared" to them long ago. And, to be honest, his family had initially been the last thing on his mind as he wandered. The last bit of the article, however, about saving the galaxy again had wormed its way into his mind.

He wasn't big enough to save the galaxy, he was no Shepard. Only she, of all the people he'd met, could handle that massive load. Even a planet was too big. But maybe, maybe he could make a difference on a space station somewhere where people really needed help.

Inevitably he'd found his way to Omega, the end of the line.

He was completely out of money by then. He'd gone straight to the poor, the passed over, the ones who couldn't afford to pay in anything but food. Once he'd cleaned the vorcha and filth out of a hole in the rock he had a home. He'd started doing what Shepard had done wherever she'd gone. He mingled, speaking with people, finding things he could do for them they had no hope of doing for themselves.

He always kept his helmet on.

Conceivably someone might recognize him and he'd be approached by all kinds of people. Rich people trying to pick him up as a famous bodyguard, merc outfits looking for a famous hire, or maybe a famous kill. Fans, crazies, what have you. And if that happened the people he really wanted to help would get elbowed to the back of the line.

It had started small. Rescuing a daughter kidnapped by batarian slavers. Wiping out the enforcers of an extortion racket. Nobody knew who he was, or that he was doing it. He just listened and acted. It felt good. He kept doing it.

Pretty soon word got around that mercenary gangs weren't welcome in his part of town. Nobody knew who to blame, and anyone who took it out on the civilians got special attention. And each day, outside his little hole, there would be food waiting for him.

It hadn't take the civilians long to put two and two together. A stranger in heavy combat armor with expensive, next generation weapons takes up residence and suddenly the mercenaries start losing ground. And soon more than food was showing up in the morning.

One day a young turian with a fierce expression was waiting for him. Garrus had half drawn on the kid before he'd seen his weapon- a beat up, ancient pistol. The kid had tried to convince Garrus to let him join up.

Shepard never turned away help.

It was quickly clear that, aside from his single museum-piece of a pistol, the kid had no weapons or military training of any kind. So Garrus took it upon himself to train the kid up. After a while he'd even let him participate, though always in the safest, least exposed ways he needed or could invent. The kid's name was Sidonis.

More trickled in as weeks turned to months and word got around.

Miraculously, nobody outed them to the mercs. Part of it was that the mercs weren't in the poor people's faces nearly as much, but it was more than that. As he'd walked the streets, his little gang in tow, people would look at him through his tinted helmet with more than the wary caution he had grown accustomed to. He had become something to them. Some kind of symbol. Or maybe just a good luck charm.

As his squad grew in strength and experience he started to get more and more ambitious, going after the untouchable crime bosses and merc captains. Their reputation grew. His squad never argued with him, never tried to change his plans. They accepted whatever he said without hesitation, almost with awe. It was disconcerting.

It was the blacklisted batarian hacker Sensat, no longer able to get a job after one too many convictions, that told him about the name people had given him. Archangel. Guardian angel of the destitute, the starving, the hopeless.

He'd had to spend a day on his own to sort out his feelings on that one. Names were a big deal on Palaven, his home world and heart of turian space. A name represented not only who you were, but in a real sense, where you came from. As much as the face paint along his mandibles and cheeks, a name showed others which tribe you hailed from, which world you'd grown up on. It wasn't simply something people called you as it was among humans. It was an identity, a soul.

In the end, he accepted it, committing himself to the cause.

And then he failed.

The team was relaxing, taking it easy after a big hit on a Red Sand deal. They'd destroyed the drugs and seized a cache of arms to boot. They were all upbeat, excited. They were making a difference and they knew it. People walked the streets without fear. Thieves avoided the area, knowing what happened to criminals in that part of town. Garrus had been forced to turn away another solid dozen recruits. They were gaining momentum.

And, once again, it had ended completely, irreversibly, in a single moment.

Sidonis had called him to a meeting with an informant, but no one had been at the meeting sight. Suspicion had gnawed at him and he raced back to their safe house. The street's absolute silence had told him before he got there. The safe house was in ruins. What was inside had forced him to remove his helmet to vomit.

The mercenaries had let out all their fear, their frustration, on his squad. His friends had been torn through by gunfire, but it hadn't been enough to sate the mercenaries' anger.

The combat armor had been stripped off his squad's corpses and their bodies had been ripped apart. Blood was everywhere, a gruesome rainbow splattered on the floors, the walls. By the guttering light of fires lit by heavy weapons he could make out crude writing on the ceiling, painted in blood.

They were threats, taunts, directed at him.

His motion as he walked into the room activated the vid screen which came to life, though it was hard to make out the images on half the screen beneath a splatter of blood. His horror, disgust, became numbness as he watched the video. No emotion showed on his face.

Not all of them had died before they'd been torn apart.

They'd recorded it.

When the vid finally stopped the only sound was the crackle of the dying flames. It seemed impossibly loud in the quiet left after the drunken shouts and threats, usually indecipherable beneath the screams of his squad as the survivors were tied down one by one. They'd taken an old, dull knife to their limbs, sawing them off methodically. Two, the salarian Erash and a turian, Melanis, had survived to the end of it. Their strangled, animal moans were finally silenced by the varren.

Like their masters, the varren played with their food before they finished it off.

The only thought his mind could produce was a desperate question. What had gone wrong? In the echoing, blank emptiness of his stunned mind a single thought struck like a thundering bolt of lightning.

_Sidonis_

But he couldn't rush in, he had to be sure. One mistake had cost him his entire squad. He refused to make another.

He watched the video again. The agony, the violence, the screams, were indelibly scarred into his mind, but he went on grimly. He was ticking off the dead.

Erash, Sensat, Melanis.

Again.

Mierin and Grundan.

Again.

Monteague, Ripper, Butler.

Again.

Vortash, Weaver...

Only ten. There was no Sidonis. But he had to be sure, had to be careful now.

He checked the squad's joint account. Empty.

He willed himself to be wrong.

He hacked into the spaceport shipping records. Sidonis had booked passage the day before the slaughter.

_Sidonis_.

It all came out then, the moment he knew for certain he'd been betrayed. All the emotion that had welled up inside him.

He screamed.

Turian screams were unlike those of any other species. They are far higher pitched then their speaking voices, and far, far louder. They are also intensely musical. Instead of a single pitch, it actually produces audible overtones, each capable of projecting emotional inflection. As such, a turian scream is something intensely personal, never to be heard by anyone but family if at all possible, even under torture.

Archangel didn't give a damn about the rules.

His shriek was haunting, a clashing chord of rage and grief, anger and despair. There was no way anyone listening could not feel, in small part, what he felt, and moans rose from the terrified inhabitants of the surrounding apartments.

Archangel had failed, had fallen. But if he was going to hell, then to hell with the rules. He'd take as many of the bastards down with him as he could, armed or unarmed. Asleep or awake. Helpless or fighting. The gloves had come off.

Archangel was out for vengeance, and his wrath was terrible.

If they thought not having a team would slow him down, they were wrong. It was open war on the streets, and he pushed himself to exhaustion and beyond. His memory of those days was foggy at best, but a few moments stood out.

Standing over Kron Harga, the one who'd organized the raid on his squad, and watching him bleed out from the spray of bullets he'd put into him. The batarian's face was fractured where he'd smashed it with his rifle butt. Soaking him in fuel. Lighting the match.

Rhi-hesh Shurta, the one making the most threats in the video, coming into view through his rifle's scope.

Har Urek, the saboteur who'd disabled the hide out's alarms, suffocating to death, the air scrubber from his suit crushed beneath Archangel's heal.

Thralog Mirki'it, the drug dealer who'd paid for the raid, screaming in agony as red sand burned in each of his four eyes.

Zel'Aenik nar Helash, the insane quarian who'd done the cutting, tied down on his bed while Archangel forced his mask off. Coughing in his face. Smiling as the infection spread.

It had been a good last gasp, but they'd run him down in the end, ganged up on him. And Shepard had swooped out of nowhere to save him.

And here he was...

…

What now?

Could he go back in time, work for Shepard again like none of it had ever happened?

The answer was immediate. No. He could not, would not forget what had happened. It was inextricably, permanently part of him. But he _could_ work for Shepard. The prospect was appealing. To do something that mattered again, but not to be the leader. No, thankfully not the leader. That was Shepard's burden. But he could understand it. Whatever decisions she made, whatever mistakes, he would not blame her. He would back her, all the way. And even if she led him to his death, he'd go gladly. She had given him more than his life back when she saved him from Tarak's gunship. She'd given him a purpose, something to live for. She'd given him back Garrus, and perhaps he could leave the nightmarish, endless violence of Archangel behind him. But he would remember.

Broken as the armor was, he would fix it. Whatever the cost.

Well, no med team had come running, so he was probably safe taking out the IV. He sacrificed his towel to staunch the blood and examined his armor again. It was definitely best to escape Chakwas while the going was good.

Despite the damage, the armor's servo "muscles" were still intact, which meant it would probably make it easier to walk with the armor than on his own anyways. He eased his legs forward and reached for the first strap.

* * *

><p>Joker was up to his neck in all the diagnostics reports he'd put off sending to the Illusive Man when he hard the distinctive thuds of heavy combat armor coming up the walkway.<p>

Shepard was the only one who ever talked to him that wore combat armor, so who-

He spun his chair around and the shock of Garrus' appearance broke off his train of thought.

"Shit Garrus, what happened? You like like death."

The string of stunned Cerberus personnel trying and failing to be subtle about staring into the cockpit backed him up.

Garrus smiled slightly. At least, Joker was pretty sure that's what that mandible twitch meant. They seemed to mean everything from "thank you" to "I want to murder you in your sleep."

"And I feel like it, too."

And sounded like it. Joker glossed over that detail, however.

"Man, first Shepard and now you. It's like the zombie apocalypse, only everyone forgot to tell me."

"Technically, Mr. Moreau, Garrus never died," EDI chimed in brightly.

"Yeah, well, with my luck they'll bring me back just to hear more of your commentary. So, Garrus... uh, yeah. So... what have you been up to these last couple years?"

Garrus gave him a blank look. "What are _you_ doing on a Cerberus ship?"

Joker resettled the cap on his head nervously. It occurred to him that the last time he'd seen Garrus they'd been _attacking_ Cerberus. "Yeah, long story."

Garrus rolled his eyes. "Indeed. That answers for both of us." Garrus winced in pain for a moment and skipped the rest of the niceties. "Where is Shepard?"

Joker glanced up at him, debating whether or not the turian would charge off to see her when he looked ready to fall apart just standing there. For once it was nice to consider someone _else's_ limitations.

"She's back on Omega picking up a scientist," he answered slowly.

Garrus huffed softly. A laugh? "And has the shooting started yet?"

"Ha, it's nice to be around someone who's been with Shepard awhile. The others refuse to believe the Hero of the Skyllian Blitz, the Savior of the Citadel, has the worst luck in the history of mankind." He remembered who he was talking to. "Or sentient kind. Or whatever. But they'll learn." He smiled wickedly.

Garrus leaned heavily against the wall, trying and failing to make it look casual. He must be ready to fall over.

"Well, why don't we tune in and watch the carnage?"

Joker looked up at the tall, battered turian in genuine surprise.

"We can listen in on their coms, but helmet cams don't broadcast, otherwise the bad guys would just pick up your signal and cut you to shreds."

Garrus definitely smiled this time, though it was followed up with a wince.

"The answers are 'no' and 'it doesn't matter,'" he said with genuine humor. "Helmet coms broadcast wirelessly to the armor's data storage so there aren't any wires to get cut in combat. Feeding the video to a separate storage device leaves more memory for the targeting processor in the helmet to work with."

Garrus motioned towards the transparent HUD display creeping around his own head and over his right eye.

"Normally, you wouldn't be able to pick it up, but when you know the exact frequency, and you're as close as we are now, and you have a full blown warship's sensor package instead of a little hand-held unit, it should work."

"But I don't have the frequency..." Somehow it came out more a question than a statement.

"Ah, but _I_ do," Garrus declared triumphantly, obviously pleased with himself. "Shepard always had us program in each others' frequencies so we could all see what was going on." He rattled it off.

Joker looked at him suspiciously. "So you just had that ready, after all this time?"

Garrus looked a little less certain now. "I... never deleted it."

_Oops, not where this conversation's supposed to go. _"Well, let's see if it works. Spying on the CO Garrus, that's pretty bold. If she comes to kill us, I still have my back-from-the-dead-free pass, right? EDI, could you-"

The display popped to life, showing Shepard's point of view. Man it was annoying when EDI did that. Helpful, yes, but annoying.

Garrus gave up on pretending he was fine and settled heavily into the co-pilots chair to watch.

The audio feed took a few seconds to adjust while EDI tweaked the signal, so all they got out of Shepard's conversation with a turian door guard was "plague," "quarantine zone," and "grenade launcher."

"Told you," Garrus quipped.

"Hey, I was betting your side." Joker said it as casually as he could, but he could feel the tension building in him as the squad moved forward into the quarantine zone. It was one thing to hear, to imagine, but _watching _it was totally different.

The quarantine zone looked a lot closer to a war zone than anything Joker had seen outside of the vids. There really _were_ bodies lying in the streets. And far more were stacked in piles, nasty green fluid dribbling down from the aliens' eyes and ears. Joker was about to ask what they were going to do with the bodies when Shepard rounded a corner to reveal two blue suns soldiers in full armor and masks holding a body between them. They gave the corpse a few momentum-building swings before tossing it into a massive bonfire. The incongruous thought of how ridiculous the idea of open fires on a space station was held him for a moment before the import of what he was seeing settled in and churned his stomach.

"Are they really...?" He broke off weakly, unable to finish the thought.

He glanced over at Garrus who seemed completely unmoved by the sight. What must he have seen to make this scene have no effect on him at all? Joker shuddered, his perspective of Garrus suddenly changing drastically.

"Plague control at its most basic," Garrus muttered musingly.

Joker gave him an appraising look.

"What? I've actually gotten used to the smell of burning bodies over the years..." Then he seemed to really hear his own words. "That's probably a bad sign."

And he _knew_ this guy?

Shepard, too, seemed unperturbed by the sight. At least, she didn't hesitate in leveling her heavy shotgun and sending the closest blue sun sprawling backwards into the flames. The second went down under a hail of lighter fire, almost certainly form Miranda and Jacob off screen.

It was bad.

Garrus seemed to take the flashes of weapon fire, the shriek of near misses by hypervelocity rounds, and Shepards sharp, ice-cold commands in stride. Joker was far less composed, though seeing Garrus unmoved helped steady his nerves somewhat.

There was a particularly rough moment when the squad reached the edge of the turf war and faced a bloody free-for-all between the blue suns and the vorcha. Out of the corner of the view screen Joker could see a vorcha with a flame-thrower sneaking up on Shepard. She didn't seem to notice, engaged as she was with firing on three different blue sun troopers with that monster shotgun of hers. He'd actually opened his mouth to cry out, for all the good it would do, when she spun in midstride, drawing her pistol left handed. She sent a single round into the creature's fuel tank before making a biotic-laden gesture which sent the alien skidding across the floor into its fellows, where the fuel tank let go and sprayed flaming orange blood everywhere.

Joker forced his fingers to loosen themselves from their death grip on his chair's armrest. His teeth he couldn't quite mange to unclench. "Is it always this bad?" He didn't take his eyes from the display.

Garrus eyed him curiously, as if unsure how to take the question.

"This is actually a pretty clean fight, all things considered. No civilians, nice long distance between the fighters."

"Long distance?" Shepard just blasted that vorcha from no further than a meter!

Garrus huffed again. "When Shepard fights up close, you'll know it."

They watched in silence after that.


	11. Pests

**Hey again. Sorry it's been so long, but I've been extremely busy. Not much of an excuse, but there it is. I went on vacation, started a new semester, kinda-sorta got into a relationship, and started competing ballroom dance. Anyways, here it is, and hopefully the next chapter or two will come more quickly. After that... I'll have run out of backlog and we'll see what happens. Hopefully I'll get inspired again and get back into the story.**

Chapter 11: Pests

Shepard stepped wearily into the medical center, and waved her companions to lower their weapons. It had been a long slog through the fractured blue suns and mindless waves of vorcha.

The entryway to the clinic was a study in contrast. The bright, cheery sign on the arch was offset by the bodies of blue suns hanging off it and the small army of mechs guarding it. The building looked ready for an invasion. The machines lowered their weapons, but not by much.

A solitary living being, a human armed with an assault rifle that looked like it had seen better decades, watched over the mechs. He looked the squad up and down, clearly nervous at the thought of letting such heavily armed people into the clinic. At length he jerked his head to the door at his back.

"Alright, you can come in, but no funny business or you'll have those mechs to deal with."

"Uh huh." Shepard spoke with a flat, uninterested tone. The pounding of automatic weapons had added to her sleep-deprivation headache in the worst way, and she was not in the mood to humor people. "Some refugees are following behind us. Try not to shoot them."

The clinic itself was a demonstration in organized chaos. Assistants, almost all of them human, scurried back and forth carrying medications, old-fashioned clip boards, medical readouts and more. They had to step carefully, as cheap beds and benches with moaning patients lay everywhere, right up to the lobby entrance. Somewhere from deeper in the clinic two voices carried over the din.

"Professor, we're running low on cipoxidin."

The trio wound their way through the maze of beds. Shepard fought to keep the grimace off her face as she brushed by people left and right. Some even reached out to grab her. She clenched her fists and moved on.

"Use malanarin. Plenty on hand. Almost as good. Causes cramps in batarians. Supplement with butemerol."

"Malanarin and butemerol. Got it."

They continued their way to the back, where the most difficult cases were laid out. Some were without beds at all and simply huddled on the floor. Thick, green fluid was everywhere, staining the floor, on the uniforms of nurses, even the walls. The voices were getting louder.

"Cenozine is the catalyst. Bonds to genetic markers. Hard to find. Expensive to mass produce. Why not heplacore? To unstable. Inconsistent results. Demozane better option. No no no! Demozane toxic to-"

The speaker, a salarian with a single horn, was speaking with a human assistant. At last.

"Professor Mordin Solus?"

The salarian looked up at them, dismissing his assistant. His eyes narrowed speculatively. It wasn't difficult to follow his thoughts; he seemed incapable of thinking silently. The words poured out of him, a veritable flood, far faster than any human though still discernible.

"Hmm. Don't recognize you from area. Too well-armed to be refugees. No mercenary uniform. Quarantine still in effect. Here for something else? Vorcha? Crew to clean the out? Unlikely. Vorcha a symptom, not a cause. The plague? Investigating possible use as bioweapon. No, too many guns, not enough data equipment. Soldiers, not scientists. Yes, yes. Hired guns, maybe? Looking for somebody? Someone important. Valuable. Someone with secrets. Like me.

Shepard finally recovered from the verbal onslaught enough to get a word in edgewise.

"Relax Mordin, I'm commander Shepard and I came here to find you. I'm on a critical mission and I need your help."

Mordin threw his three-fingered hands into the hair and started pacing frantically. "Mission? What mission? Too busy. Clinic understaffed. Plague spreading too fast. Who sent you?"

Well, it had to come out eventually. She would play it straight, no point in getting him on board to have him jump ship once they were relying on him. She braced herself for the rejection that had to be coming. Getting aliens to work with Cerberus was the shakiest part of the plan.

"Ever heard of an organization called Cerberus?"

Instead of revulsion, the salarian exuded curiosity and finally stopped his pacing.

"Crossed paths on occasion. Thought they only worked with humans. Why request salarian aid?"

What do you know, she'd get a chance to explain herself after all. No need to get into the Reaper stuff though, she'd only be laughed off. Stick with the short-term goal until they had some proof.

"I'm on a mission to shut down the collectors and I need your help."

Mordin's eyes opened wide and his thoughts took off again.

"Collectors. Interesting. Plague hitting these slums is engineered. Collectors one of few groups with technology to design it. Our goals may be similar."

With each word he said the groans around Shepard seemed to be growing louder. Words started to emerge from the crowd, but they were overwhelmed by a sort of inarticulate sound of distress. The heart of it was clear. Don't abandon us! Hands started reaching out towards Shepard, towards Mordin, who ignored them. But Shepard couldn't be so cool. She glanced back at them, inching away. There were dozens, hundreds of them! They were getting closer, coming towards her...

"But, must stop plague first."

In an instant the sound was gone, back to the background hum it had always been. It had only been three or four hands. She mostly suppressed a shudder and tried to focus on Mordin again.

"Already have a cure. Need to distribute it at an environmental control center. Vorcha guarding it..." He glanced back towards Shepard for a moment. "Need to kill them."

Could _nothing_ be easy? She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to ignore her abruptly worsening headache. _You need him. The mission has no chance without him. _She opened her eyes.

"Alright, I'll get in and deal with the vorcha."

Everything went silent.

To those accustomed to living on a planet this wouldn't mean much. For someone who spent most of her adult life on a ship, this was a very, very bad sign. The lights failed, turning over to emergency backups the glared red.

"What the hell was that?"

Shepard couldn't tell who in the press of bodies had said it, but she echoed their thoughts.

Mordin was scanning quickly through some sort of diagnostic on his omnitool.

"Vorcha shut down environmental systems. Trying to kill everyone. Need to get power back on before district suffocates."

Shepard couldn't hold back the shudder this time. Suffocating. Again. Omega was rapidly becoming her least favorite place ever. Mordin carried on as if he hadn't noticed.

"Here, take plague cure. One more thing. Daniel. One of my assistants. Went into vorcha territory. Looking for victims. Hasn't come back."

His voice had overwhelmed her again. She'd get used to it eventually... hopefully. Well, she was already going to wander around in a kill zone yet again, why not add to the fun?

"I'll keep an eye out for him." She took the cylindrical container he held out.

The squad marched out of the clinic and headed towards the environmental control center, EDI pointing the way. The district wasn't much better off on this side of the medical center. What had started as a slum had turned into outright anarchy. Looters, mostly human, swarmed everywhere. The sick tried to fight them off, though without much success. Bodies littered the street, still dripping that disgusting green ooze.

A few blocks later and they met the turf lines of the vorcha. They were much farther out than EDI's estimate. This was still well within what had been Blue Suns territory. _They've lost a lot of ground. They won't be able to hold on much longer_.

Once they crossed the line their progress slowed considerably as vorcha swarmed out after them. They seemed to come from everywhere, from beneath abandoned vehicles, from air vents, even crudely clawed-out holes in the walls. They were like rodents, only with rocket launchers. As the fight dragged on it became clear where they had gotten the heavy weapons-the Blood Pack had sent a handful of krogan, probably as recruiters, and they had the vorcha in a frenzy.

They had just entered a factory on a mid-level catwalk. A handful of snipers with rocket launchers were holed up on the catwalks above them while more swarmed in on the floor beneath. A few biotic throws later and the roof was clear, but the vorcha were good at burrowing down under cover when they needed to be. Shepard and Jacob pulled out their shotguns and the trio descended into the bowels of the former warehouse. Once they were committed to pressing forwards, helmet flashlights on in the dim corridors of abandoned heavy machinery, the krogan came out in a blind rush. Shepard and Jacob blew apart any who got too close, making the rest more cautious and allowing the marines to withdraw. Miranda wasn't so lucky.

The first krogan almost made it to her. By the time hre heavy pistol chewed threw the alien's heavy armor the krogan was almost on top of her. In desperation she lashed out with her biotics, unleashing a flare of pure destructive power. The krogan uttered an anguished cry and slid past her. The one right behind it smashed into her.

It would have been over for Miranda then and there had not the krogan overestimated her weight. Instead of hitting her into the pile of rubbish behind her and proceeding to crush the life out of her, he actually sent her over the top of it. She landed in a heap, unmoving.

Jacob cried out and immediately made his way towards her, his eviscerator lighting up the darkness as it cut down vorcha left and right. Shepard got there a second after he did.

"Jacob, we're almost through. You carry her forwards, I'll watch our backs."

Without hesitation he latched his shotgun to his back and gently gathered the beautiful woman up. Her hair draped over his arm. _She even makes unconsciousness look good. How does she do that?_

Jacob charged ahead, biotically tossing any vorcha out of his way. It wouldn't kill them, but there was no way to kill this many of the things. Shepard was right behind him, backing frantically whichever way she heard his footsteps, and firing at any vorcha that got too close. They took the hint and held their distance, though more and more were gathering by the second.

"Jacob?"

"We're almost there Shepard! I can see it ahead of us!"

She took him at his word and kept at it. There must be _hundreds_ of the things! They swarmed out like cockroaches, many unarmed, though they didn't need more than their razor sharp teeth to be dangerous.

At last they made it to the control center. The vorcha seemed to realize at the last instant that their prey was about to escape and swarmed forwards. Shepard fired desperately until even the heat sinks couldn't keep her shotgun from overheating. It was enough to smash the first wave while Jacob set down Miranda and started working on the heavy door. Shepard flipped the weapon onto her back and grabbed the handle with Jacob. Together they heaved as the vorcha closed in, clanging the door shut in their faces.

Shepard was sweating hard now. It was too close to other memories... bad memories. She threatened to shut down for a minute, overwhelmed by the onset of images of icy peaks, swarming aliens. The jarring sound of footsteps crawling up the walls brought her back. She could break down after the nightmare was over, not in the middle of it.

She quickly made her way to the central computer which had, indeed, been shut down. Or, more accurately, smashed in. Red lights glowed across what was left of the system display. Still, there might be a way. There was still wireless access to the system, though she was unauthorized to make any commands. Probably nobody still alive was.

She opened a com channel.

"EDI if I give you access can you remotely take over and restart the system?"  
>"Yes, Shepard. The environmental control's security systems have been antiquated for over a century."<p>

"Do it."

She opened access to the system through her armor. It only took a few moments before the lights started turning green. An entry port opened and she took the hint, sliding in the container Professor Solus had given her.

The clanging had grown louder. They were on the roof now.

She keyed her com.

"Joker get us out of here! And bring some firepower with you, it could get ugly!"

Yeah, she wasn't kidding. The video feed gave Joker a little extra boost in motivation. He got up and staggered to the elevator as quickly as he could. It took him a moment to realize Garrus was right behind him. Best to head him off now.

"Woah, Garrus, where are you going big guy? You should be back in medical."

"You think a little pain is going to keep me out of this fight?" Normally tough talk didn't come between gasps for breath. Joker didn't buy it.

"Edi, could you get Dr. Chakwas up here?"

Garrus gave him a look of pure betrayal.

"You fight dirty."

Joker grinned as he reached the elevator at last and punched in the hangar as his destination. "I learned from the best."

Nobody, not even Shepard, fought Chakwas about mandatory bed rest and won.

The elevator arrived quickly and he limped to the Kodiak shuttle as quickly as he could, already calling for Eric and Sloan. They were the toughs that usually guarded the doors, ex-marines and fairly competent types. They seemed a mite more behaved as of late.

Most people wouldn't consider the shuttle to be a great choice to fly into a combat zone as it lacked any sort of weaponry. Appearances, however, could be deceiving. The squat shuttle, nicknamed the "combat cockroach," got its name in part from its appearance, but only in part. The rest came from the things durability. It took a _lot_ to take out one of those shuttles. Ditching weapons allowed even more room for active masking, electronic countermeasures, and a powerful kinetic barrier system.

Thierry normally flew the shuttle, but there was no time now. Eric and Sloan charged into the open gull-wing doors while Joker slid into the sealed pilots compartment. He fired up the drive core, a powerful concentration of element zero which would do most of the heavy lifting and flared the thrusters even as the shuttle was powering up, disregarding all safety procedures. Thierry had better have kept this thing prepped.

The VI powered up as they were crossing through the atmosphere-containing barriers of Omega, and none other than Kelly Chambers' voice greeted him with a painfully bubbly "Where would you like to fly today?"

"Thieeeerrrry!"

In minutes they were flying over the control center. A concentrated volley of rockets flared past as he banked hard.

"Warning, Thierry. There are some not-very-nice people out there."

Joker ignored the VI. "Shepard, you need to give me somewhere to land! Can you get to the roof?"

"Coming." Her voice was focused, no inflection.

He circled, trying to keep his movements as sporadic as possible. He was an expert, but he didn't have a lot of room to maneuver. The rockets were blind fire, thanks to the heavy Electronic Counter Measures, but even vorcha couldn't miss all day.

"Wow, you're good at this," Kelly's voice squealed.

"Shut up!"

Three full circles later and he could see activity on the roof. Shepard was moving, her shotgun and biotics working quickly, with Jacob right behind her carrying Miranda. Not a good sign.

"Get those doors open and start firing, we're going in!"

The Cerberus soldiers pounded on the wall separating them, acknowledging.

Joker brought them in fast, skimming as low as he could. The marines were firing steadily through the doors now, spraying fire as widely as they could just to try to slow the things down.

Unfortunately, Joker wasn't the only one who noticed Shepard's appearance. All at once, the massive horde of vorcha started to move. There must have been _thousands_ of them now, swarming up from the lowest levels of Omega. Where the hell had they all come from?

This called for some drastic action.

"Thierry, I think we're going to hit the ground! Joker won't like that..." Somehow V.I. Kelly managed to make even that sound enthusiastic.

He set down hard, still moving forward. It was quite a bump for the guys in the back, and the intercom picked up a lot of less-than-pleased profanity, but it was faster than anything else. They slid forward, doors still open, right into Shepard and company. Shepard hopped in, still firing on the vorcha who were meters away now and closing. Miranda was up, jogging as much as she could with Jacob's arm around her for support. His other held his pistol, firing as quickly as he could.

"We're on."

"Good, shut the doors!"

The doors slammed shut, but it took a moment to get the shuttle off the ground.

Too long.

He could almost feel the vorcha swarm over the shuttle. He flared the engines, firing up the drive core as high as he dared to give them additional lift. The sensors still detected rockets flying all around, and everyone could hear the hammering of vorcha limbs on the shuttles exterior. At least one of them had a weapon and started firing into the shuttle at point blank range. Too close for the barriers, the heavy penetrators went straight through the thinly shielded doors.

Someone screamed in the back, though he couldn't tell who.

"Hang on to something!"

Joker gave the thrusters all they had now that he had clear sky in front of him. The banging silenced as the vorcha held on for dear life. He smashed the right flight stick to the side, grateful for his pilots harness, and sent the shuttle into a hard roll as they sped through the bowels of Omega.

The assorted curses and banging from the back didn't dampen his relief.

They were out.


	12. Harder Than It Looks

Note: It's been a long, long time. This chapter's existence is solely due to Sidnika's review and following enthusiasm. Thanks Sidnika :D

Chapter 12: Harder than it Looks

Shepard was anxious. Miranda was in the med bay, and it looked like it would be some time before she was back on her feet. The serious internal injuries from being hit by the krogan had only been compounded when she took a round through the thigh on the shuttle and then got tossed around for good measure. She had to admit, for a split second seeing Miranda so disheveled and completely helpless had been gratifying, right up to the moment she'd looked Miranda in the eyes. Her absolute misery was unmistakeable. Then she could only feel guilty. And it was that guilt that made her restless.

So what that Miranda was more talented at, well, everything but killing people? So what if she was better looking? That didn't mean she had to hate her on sight. It was _her_ attitude that was messing things up, just as much as Miranda's. But Miranda hadn't died. And that had her thinking about Ashley again. And the only way to stop thinking about Ashley was to start doing something else.

So she paced.

And she wandered.

Chakwas was busy with Miranda, and Jacob would be in there too. The moment she passed by to visit, he'd run, but he was back as she wandered through the crew deck again ten minutes later. So many people hiding their inner selves.

Screw it. She needed something to help her deal with stress, and this being Omega, there had to be _something_ out there. She headed to the airlock.

The Cerberus soldiers came to attention as she stalked out.

The market district of Omega, now that she wasn't frantically running somewhere, was definitely worth the time of day. The market itself was much like the rest of Omega; run down, filthy, and better left to someone else if you could get away from it. The stores were another story. Merchandise from across the galaxy, from the most utilitarian to the most exotic and highly illegal, could be had for the right price. The same location could hold everything from slaves to laundry detergent, and there was no organization or order of any kind, which made it a kaleidoscope of colors, advertisements, and credits. Violence was rare in this part of the Omega thanks to the extremely heavy guard placed by both the merchants themselves and Aria's goons. The environment controls and mass effect core may keep Omega habitable, but the massive market was the beating heart that made Omega run.

The owners were as diverse as their wares. Volus, their short and portly stature as indicative as their unique environmental suits of their race, turian, batarian, quarian, and even more exotic life forms intermingled.

Shepard for once didn't draw attention. She had left her armor behind (though of course she brought a shield generator), and was armed only with her M-5 pistol. It was refreshing, to be honest, to slip through the crowd unnoticed. Crowds had a feel, a tone to them, if you knew how to look. Here it was confident but wary. A dangerous combination. She was sizing up targets, looking for a quick mark. It was almost like h... no. No, no no. Well, to be honest it _was_ like the streets, but the streets were _not_ home. That was behind her.

Mostly.

The technical gizmos were fascinating, but couldn't hold her attention for long. As was habit _or is it my nature? _she found herself drifting towards the more militant shops. There were weapon modifications galore, rare blocks of ammo for a variety of weapons, even trained varren all up for sale. At last she felt herself drawn to one of the shops a little off to the side, run by a rough looking, heavily scarred batarian. On his shelves, which he carefully watched with his shotgun at the ready, were knives. Lots of knives. And one of them was calling to her.

She eyed the vendor. "May I?"

He narrowed his for eyes at her, considering. "All right, but be careful."

She went straight for a finely crafted Balisong. An object of curiosity, the buttefly knife's roots went all the way back to ancient earth. They were complicated, difficult things to use with little practical value, especially in a fight, because they were so cumbersome to open and close. A fast switchblade could be flipped out and stabbed into you before you even had your knife open. What they _were_, however, was intimidating. It took a lot of practice to master the complicated spins and tricks that were what the knife was famous for.

This particular model was made of high grade, light weight steel.

"How much?"

The vendor sneered. "Look, girl, you don't want that knife. I take pride in my work, and I don't sell these babies to amateurs."

Wait, what? After Jake she had looked for a way to defend herself, and the buttefly knife was it. Not only could she fight with it, but just having it, giving it a good flick or two, could keep the Angeles, and whoever else might be thinking about it, from coming at her. She had practiced long and hard, and had the scars to prove it. Lots of scars.

She glanced down at her hands.

_Had_ had the scars.

She shrugged and with a deft double flick had the knife open and ready to use. The batarian stood slack-jawed as she proceeded to fan the blade through her fingers. The razor sharp edge was a blur as she smoothly went through the motions she had practiced hundreds, thousands of times. She could already feel her thinking begin to calm, to slip into the focus that had been her hallmark in the Angeles. Her nerves calmed and tension she hadn't even realized was there drained out of her. She was ok. She had her knife. So long as it was in her hands nobody could hurt her.

Unfortunately, Omega wasn't quite ready to give her a reprieve.

The tone of the crowd changed.

There was no single marker, no one sign that let her know what had happened. It was a thousand small things she didn't even consciously recognize. Something had changed. She pulled out the appropriate credit chit as the batarian gave his price without looking as she scanned the crowd. All at once she saw it. There were a lot more mercs than there should have been, especially with the huge dent she'd put in their numbers getting Garrus out. They were looking for something, and some pointed fingers and hands up to com units all cried out as big red flags. Time to go.

She tossed the credits to the batarian and vanished effortlessly into the crowds.

Now that she'd effectively cut herself off from returning to Omega, Shepard was stuck on the ship. She'd already wandered all over it. It felt like she'd talked to everyone on the ship... almost everyone. Well, she couldn't avoid him forever.

Shepard wandered around the CIC, looking at all the terminals that meant nothing to her, greeting the personnel. Eventually, reluctantly, she found herself back in the cockpit. It took her a moment to gather the courage to speak. _I don't flinch when someone aims a rocket launcher at me, but give me a friend and I fall to pieces. Well, maybe still a friend, after last time._

If she was just going to get sneered at again, she might as well make a joke out of it so she could laugh it off, pretend it was all nothing. She would be alone again, but she'd survived that way for a long time.

"Everything all right up here in the cockpit?"

He spun around in his chair, too distracted to catch that she'd said the exact same thing the last time. Stupid. He probably hadn't even thought about the conversation other than to think of her as a defensive jerk for storming off on him like that.

"Look, Commander, I'm sorry about... about last time. I didn't mean to offend you or anything. I mean, you've just gone through all this crap and I have to be a jerk about it. Sorry." He really did look abashed about it, and for once he was serious.

And that was the last thing she expected to hear from him. It was... good. Yes, she still had a friend. One friend. In the whole galaxy, she could at least keep _one_ friend.

"Thanks, Joker. I... needed that." _Ahhh ahh, no. _Her mental walls kicked in, keeping her safe. "So... shall we start over then?"

Remarkably he, too, looked relieved. "Yeah."

Come on, _think_ Joker! Why can't I think of something funny to break the gigantic wall of ice that just cropped up? Fortunately, Shepard pulled his fat out of the fire. Again.

"So... after all this time, I still don't know why they call you Joker." Not his favorite topic, but it was something. _Okay, keep it light._

"It's a lot shorter than 'Former Alliance Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau.' Plus, I love to make little children laugh."

Shepard merely raised an eyebrow.

Okay, so maybe a little heavy on the sarcasm.

"Look, I didn't pick the name." His voice sounded irritated even to him now, and he tried to tone it down. He owed her, big time. "One of the instructors in flight school used to bug me about never smiling. She started calling me Joker and it stuck."

"Why didn't you ever smile?"

_Nope, we're not going that direction_. The mental walls kicked in, keeping him safe. He looked her in the eyes, trying to judge the intent behind the question. She didn't _sound_ like she was making fun of him...

"Hey, I worked my ass off in flight school, Commander. The world's not going to hand you anything if you go around grinning like an idiot. By the end of the year, I was the best pilot in the Academy. Even better than the instructors, and everybody knew it. They'd all got their asses kicked by the sickly kid with the creaky little legs. One guess who was smiling at graduation."

_Light, keep it _light, _Joker,_ he pleaded with himself.

Shepard smiled. "Showed them, huh? Have you kept track of any of them?"

He gave her a confused glance. "Uh, not really a people person here. It was hard enough to get them to notice me when I was right there in front of them."

What was with all the personal questions? Did the others have to deal with this?

She looked surprised. "Really? You don't write to anybody?"

Ok, she _had_ to be making fun of him now. Well, he knew how to deal with that.

"No, Shepard, I don't. In case you hadn't noticed, my sparkling personality hasn't gained me many followers... except Kelly," he amended, "who's trying to figure me out." Thankfully, an alert started pulsing on his console, and he spun around to see what it was. It was easier, not having to look at her. "How do you keep her off you, anyways?"

Shepard's tone was still light. "She's a psych type. Just tell her what she wants to hear, give the brass something they think they understand and everyone goes home happy."

And what kind of answer was that? She was dodging the question. In fact, he wasn't sure he'd _ever_ heard her answer a straight question about herself.

"You know, you're really good at dodging questions."

Shepard had to fight the impulse to pull out. He was a friend, friends talked, told each other about themselves.

_Just breathe. You know him It's okay_.

She was glad he was facing the other direction. It made it easier somehow. Very slowly, deliberately, she leaned forward onto the back of his chair. A steadying breath later and she was okay... so far. Joker seemed to breathe a little faster too. Or maybe that was her imagination. _Freak, I probably look ridiculous, but I _think_ this is what that girl does when she talks to Thierry..._

"You're right, Joker. I... have a lot of practice at dodging questions. I'm just not used to having real conversations about me."

Joker, still looking forward, nodded. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Normally it's a nice hello, crack a joke, and they get the hell out. But I thought that was just me. You went around and talked to people all the time, to Garrus, Wrex, and the gang."

She chuckled under her breath. "No, I got them to talk about themselves. Just about everyone I've ever met likes to talk about themselves. It's natural, I guess, but I've never had the slightest inclination to do it. And I get the feeling you don't either."

It was Joker's turn to laugh. "What are you talking about? Haven't I regaled you with enough tales of the best pilot in galaxy? It used to be just the Alliance, but, you know, I've expanded my horizons."

"Yeah, but notice how I've never heard you talk about _you_?"

Joker's jaw clenched, and his arms were a mass of knotted muscles.

No, she'd pushed too hard, too fast, pissed him off again, and he was just going to-

"Huh. I guess you're right," he let out slowly, trying and failing for a casual tone.

Ok, keep it light, keep it going. Be honest. That was the one thing she knew about friendship, was that it was supposed to be honest. But heaven knows she needed a friend now.

"So..."

...

Now what? Friendship was about letting people through your barriers. But where to start? As usual, Joker came to her rescue.

"Alright, Shepard, let's try this. You tell me something about you, the real you, not the Savior of the Galaxy, and I'll tell you one thing about me. Then I think I'll need a couple of days to recover."

Shepard smiled in relief. He was at least willing to give it a shot. And could make a joke about how difficult it was, that had just enough truth in it for both of them.

"Ok."

But what to tell? She hadn't had to think about this kind of thing in... well, ever. Normally it was surface stuff, what was it like in space, or at this posting or that, under this that or the other officer. It wasn't a lie, exactly, what she told people, but neither was it a real part of herself. She had never entrusted herself to another person before. She'd never needed to before. So something real... but not _too_ deep.

Joker, thankfully, let the long pause pass without comment.

"I don't know who my parents are." The urge to reach out, to catch the words before they were out, was almost overwhelming. She plowed on, fighting to get each word out. "I grew up on... the streets in a gang, the... the Angeles. In Germany, back on Earth... no brothers or sisters. The gang was all boys... the only girls around were passed from guy to guy. I had to be... careful... all the time. That's why I always sleep in clothes. I dreamed about it the other night, which was why I came down here, looking like a wreck."

It was easier, a little, once she got going. Joker didn't say anything for a moment, just taking in what she'd said. It was a surprise, but one that she was profoundly grateful for, that he was so good at waiting for her when she needed a second.

And what, exactly, was he supposed to say to _that_? Sorry? He didn't want _her_ pity, he could only guess she felt the same. That was probably even worse than hero worship. So what? If what she wanted was a friend it was the least he could do to pay back that debt, but where to begin? Freak, say _something_ at least.

"Umm..."

She smiled in understanding.

"Come on, I sweated it out. Your turn."

No, seriously, what _was_ he supposed to say after that little bombshell? He'd known she'd grown up on earth, all the news articles liked to point that one out, but they'd forgotten to mention a couple of things. Well, if it was growing up stuff, then he'd give what he got.

Who knew friendship was so hard?

"Alright, well, fair is fair." He took a deep breath and rushed in, hurrying to get it over with. "My mother was a civilian contractor working for the Alliance. I basically grew up on the Arcturus station, back when they were building up the fleets. Spend that much time around Alliance ships and there's a good chance you'll end up going to the Academy."

There, it was done. It wasn't nearly as intense as Shepard's little story, but hell, who was he compared to her anyways?

"Alright, Shepard, I think that's about all the serious I can take for one day."

"Yeah, I know the feeling. Still..." Her voice turned soft and oddly vulnerable. Not something he'd ever expected to hear in the same sentence with the name Shepard. "...do you regret it?"

He though about it for a second. Normally he'd toss off a throw-away answer, but after all this... "...No."

"Me either."

He felt the pressure ease off the back of his chair, and it felt like it had been removed from his lungs as well, like he could breathe easy again. Her footsteps echoed off the metal grated floor as she headed back towards the plot in CIC.

"Please don't make me," he whispered to himself.

The footsteps paused.

_Shit._

"I won't." Her reply was equally soft.

At last she left. He actually turned around to make sure she was gone this time. He felt relief, but at the same time, was sad to see her go. He'd had acquaintances, friends before, but nothing like _that_ emotional rollercoaster. At least now he could melt into his chair without anyone watching.

"Helmsman Moreau-"

He jumped about a foot out of his chair.

"-you are demonstrating a variety of emotional responses. What, precisely, are you feeling?"

He turned back to his console in irritation. "If I knew, I'd tell you."

Ok, technically a lie, but whatever. Only then did it occur to him that EDI hadn't said a word during his entire conversation with Shepard. He had to admit he was the tiniest bit grateful to the computer.


	13. Old Friends

Chapter 13: Old Friends

_To say that Elenia was surprised was a drastic understatement. The asari practically jumped out of her skin when Shepard slithered through what remained of the entrance to one of Elysium's finest hotels covered in blood and wearing ill-fitting combat armor. That surprise had turned into an eager grin when she saw the weapons Shepard had brought the group. It sat wrong with a cop, even a retired one, to cower and do nothing while chaos wound around her. _

_ She'd also known better than to ask questions. There was too much to be done. The weapons distributed, Shepard turned back to the dirty, artificial night. The situation had deteriorated rapidly even in the short time she'd been away. Fires had sprung up across the city, and the cloud of dust was now complemented by a heavy layer of ash. With the power grid out, the only illumination came from the fires across the city.  
>She gave her omni-tool another try, but it fizzled out of being almost as soon as she activated it. Dead. She was on her own.<em>

_ It was a no-win situation, but, damnit, she was a marine and there were civilians here about to be butchered or sold into slavery, civilians she'd sworn to protect. _

_ She knew no-win situations. Life in the Angeles had been a no-win situation. She knew, from the moment she entered the gang, that the endless fight would kill her. Yet each day she survived and hoped to last long enough to take just one more of the bastards down. It was an all out fight to the death, and there was no room for honor in those fights. You distracted, you ran, you hid, you stabbed them in the back. And this promised to be the mother of all gang wars. _

_ Time to get started._

_Shepard used the darkness as her shield, covering her as she slid from back alley to back alley. Her weapons, a pistol, assault rifle, and the switch blade, were holstered to allow for better movement. She moved as far away from the hotel as she could, though it would be of limited help. The slavers were everywhere._

_ There weren't many options for success in this kind of fight. If you made a mistake, you died. If you got unlucky, you died. And if the bad guys were even half-way competent and made rational decisions, you died. So, the first order of the day was to piss them off. Second, was to confuse them. If she could do both at the same time, better still._

_ It didn't take long to find her spot, and she was fortunate enough to avoid running into any hostilities right off the bat. She picked her way carefully through what had once been an office tower that had the misfortune of being too near one of the defense towers. Now it was a bombed out skeleton. It may not be pretty, but it was on the intersection of two major flyways, clear in all directions. She climbed to the second floor, high enough to have a good angle, low enough to make the angle of attack obvious. She set up her assault rifle on the rim of what had once been a plush corner office. Now it was a waiting game. _

_ Several groups of slavers passed by until it came together. Her sniper roost had angles down the street both to the left, and if she really craned her neck and leaned out a touch, to the right. And two groups of slavers were approaching from different directions. She leaned out as far as she dared and aimed to the right, counting on the slavers keeping their eyes down for more local threats, or more likely, prey. They were turians. Still angry over the first contact war with humanity? Of course humanity would run into the most militant species of the council first. In the end, of course, it didn't really matter. _

_ She sighted on the front runner and fired off two quick bursts before pulling back. If she was lucky they still hadn't really drawn a bead on her yet. If they had, she was dead. That was just how it worked sometimes. Now, for the tricky part. _

_ The turians started returning fire, though there was a lot of office between her and the targets now she was under cover. The important thing was that they were firing. She sighted down to the left. Another group of slavers, this time batarians, was headed towards the sound of gunfire. The angle was easier, and she dropped the lead batarian without too much difficulty before again pulling back. _

_ More gunfire. She waited three seconds before poking the assault rifle out the window and blind firing towards the turians. That was the best she could do. She holstered her weapons, gripped an exposed girder, and slid down to the first floor. Outside the gunfire erupted to a new crescendo as the two rival groups caught sight of each other. And now if they would kindly kill each other off while she slipped out the back..._

_ Her escape was not as clean as she hoped. _

_She took a turian by surprise, fixed as he was on getting to cover from all the firing going on outside. He was half turned back towards the street._

_ Shepard instantly flipped out her knife and barreled into him, impacting at full speed. She kept the knife in front of her, no wild swings to mar her aim, and her full weight jammed the knife straight through the turians metallic plates at his neck. He crumpled, gasping for air that would never come, and Shepard dashed into the darkness._

_ She had been incredibly lucky. Knife fighting was almost never fast. Unless someone made a major error both parties just bled to death. But that was life on the streets. You went for the kill, fast and hard, or you bled to death. She could only hope to slow them down before they bled her dry. _

_ And bleed she would._

The first thing Shepard saw as her eyes snapped open and she launched from her bed was an intruder crouched low, left hand pulled up defensively over her own face, fingers curled in to reveal her blood-shot, darting eyes. The intruder's right hand held a viscious-looking knife, wielded with deadly skill. Her dark hair was splayed haphazardly, plastered to her face, while her teeth spread in a menacing snarl, just visible around her shielding arm.

Danger was written all over her. There was no dealing with her, no reason to her. Shepard knew instantly the woman would kill or die trying. There was only one thing to do.

Shepard found her own knife in her hand and threw it with lightning quickness.

The mirror shattered.

Shepard stepped out of the elevator into the CIC fresh from breakfast. The look on her face had been enough to give her an entire table to herself despite the crowd. Jacob pulled himself to attention as she relieved him of command. And he certainly looked relieved. He was XO until Miranda recovered. Speaking of which...

"How are they?"

"Executive Lawson should be back to her duties by 1500 tonight barring last minute complications. As for Garrus..." Jacob sighed and didn't bother to hide the regret in his voice. "Commander, we've done what we could for Garrus, but he took a bad hit. The docs corrected with surgical procedures and some cybernetics. Best we can tell, he'll have full functionality, but..."

He was interrupted by the elevator which slid open to reveal Garrus. He was in a bad way. The right side of his face was a mess of scars, bandages, and half-healed burns. His blue combat armor was working miracles just keeping itself powered up.

"There you are, Shepard."

Jacob looked impressed despite himself.

"Tough son-of-a-bitch. Didn't think he'd be up yet."

Garrus strode calmly over to them, pointedly ignoring Jacob. "Nobody would give me a mirror. How bad is it?"

Relief flooded Shepard's system, almost as good as a full nights sleep and as of late, just as rare. She couldn't hold back the grin. Another miracle, another friendship still alive. "Hell Garrus, you were always ugly. Slap some face-paint on there and no one will even notice."

He huffed in laughter before breaking off in a grimace. His talons clenched in impotent agony.

"Oh don't make me laugh, damn it, my face is hardly holding together as it is." His body visibly relaxed as he regained control, though it didn't fool Shepard. Most people would still be unconscious in his position. That he tried to pass it off with a joke was a testament to his courage.

"Some women find facial scars attractive. Mind you, most of those women are krogan."

Jacob, recognizing Garrus' brush off for what it was, saluted and made his way off towards the armory.

Garrus glanced around briefly, sending the observing crew back to their work with sheepish looks. He sat down across from her and lowered his voice.

"Frankly I'm more worried about you. I've heard bad things about Cerberus these past few years."

She would play it straight with him. She owed him that much, and far more for the trust he was showing her now. And she'd damn well look into his eyes when she said it.

"That's why I'm glad you're here, Garrus. If I'm walking into hell, I want someone I can trust watching my back."

He seemed amused, if anything, which was a little disconcerting. "You realize this plan has me walking into hell too, right? Just like old times." His single undamaged mandible flicked in the turian approximation of a smile. "I'm fit for duty whenever you need me Shepard. I'll settle in and see what I can do with the forward batteries."

Could he actually be fond of the hell they'd gone through to get Saren?

He stepped back into the elevators.

Shepard stood there a while longer, looking out over the crew she commanded, specialists all. In their own way, each was as talented as Shepard herself, as important in the highly choreographed dance that moved her between the stars. And all of them were counting on her to get the job done when they got there. It was still a distant, professional trust, from junior officer to superior. What she had with Garrus was something entirely different, and all too rare.

Even in her mind she couldn't find the words to express what Garrus' trust meant to her. Their last exchange was deadly serious for all its light banter. Unlike any of the other crew, he absolutely knew what he was getting into, and yet he was following her anyways. There was no way to ever express the way she felt about it. No way to ever thank him for it. It simply was. It was absolute trust, absolute confidence, and it worked both ways.

_Well, as long as I'm meeting the crew..._

She stepped into the laboratory to find it remarkably changed. The equipment had been completely reorganized according to Mordin's personal preferences. On top of that, the lab seemed to have morphed into a living, breathing beast. A rainbow of fluids bubbled and steamed over burners, centrifuges spun wildly, pipettes lay scattered across tables. Freezers hummed and digital projections and readings danced across monitors throughout the room. And those were just the things she recognized.

Amid this organized chaos Mordin flitted from experiment to experiment, adding a chemical here, making a note there. Shepard had no idea how he was keeping everything straight in his head, much less learning anything. Maybe they could find a solution to the collector swarms after all.

"Hey Mordin, do you have a minute?"

The salarian in question popped a head out from behind a big whirring machine that, well, whirred a lot.

"Good timing Shepard, next batch has 90 more seconds until results."

Shepard found a corner of a table that didn't look to be moving in any way and leaned back against it. "Ah, yeah. So how are things going with your research?"

Mordin darted out from behind his big machine and started carefully observing bubbling fluids of several colors while he talked.

"Excellent! Cerberus very well funded. Haven't had this much fun since time in STG. And AI, yes, surprisingly helpful."

Shepard smiled. "Well, I'm glad things are working out for you. Any progress on figuring out a way past those seeker swarms?"

Mordin had already moved on to the next experiment by the time she finished the question.

"Progress? Yes, lots of progress. Dozens of ideas already tried and discarded. Excellent progress."

Shepard raised an eye-brow. "Have any of your ideas actually _worked _yet?"

Edi's voice cut in. "Professor, your results are ready on monitor three."

"Yes, yes, excellent. Sorry Shepard, back to work."

With that he unceremoniously shooed her out of lab.

_Well that could have gone worse_.

…

The Citadel was, as ever, a sight to behold asit emerged from its cloud cover. Its giant arms sparkled with the lights of millions of inhabitants, more than many a developed. The space around the Citadel was as busy as its surface, with ships buzzing in and out of docking bays in a never-ending rush.

The Normandy cut smoothly through the traffic on the priority traffic corridor assigned to them by the civilian traffic control center and settled gracefully into her slot. With a final hiss of pressurized air the airlock unsealed and they were back.

Shepard took off through the airlock the moment decontamination had finished, leaving Miranda to sort through the mess of crew rosters, ships shifts, and shore leave. Mr. Illusive Man said she was important, too important for the mundane things like scheduling and mortality; was it her fault if she took him at his word?

The Citadel looked different than she remembered. It looked . . . clean.

_The Counsel chambers were a battle-scarred mess. Shepard leaned up against the remains of desk that had been burned to black by a grenade before the entire platform had collapsed into the garden. _

_ Far above lights flashed as Sovereign did battle with the fifth fleet. The flashes of weapon fire bright even over the backdrop of twisted metal burning as it crashed through the Citadel's atmosphere. Shepard kept her focus closer, consciously pushing thoughts of the distant battle from her mind. Something was moving, crawling, through the flickering half lift. Something far more terrible than the turian Spectre it had once been. _

_ She readied her shotgun and hoped it would be enough._

Shepard shook her head and cleared the memory from her mind. There was no sign of that desperate battle now. No scars from the ruined starships, the mutilated bodies, the crushed towers. It was clean now. A blank slate, a fresh start. It was like the battle had never taken place, like she'd never been there.

Yet another sign that the world the old Shepard had known was gone. The world that made sense was gone.

"Sorry for the inconvenience, ma'am. Our scanners are picking up false readings. They seem to think you're, uh, dead."

The turian C-Sec officer's voice brought Shepard back to the moment. Dead. Right. She was dead, only now she wasn't. Try to find protocols for _that _ in an Alliance handbook. The thought tugged the corner of her mouth into just a hint of a smile. A moment of humor to slide away from the gaping wound of uncertainty that lay beneath the surface.

"Well I'm standing right here. Do _you_ think I'm dead?"

The turian officer took it as a joke. "Of course not ma'am. Please see the security officer inside on your right to get re-entered into the system."

Thankfully there was a human at the desk and not a turian who would have made her run through the entire endless process. It was only a few moments later and she was on her way, which was a good thing; she was officially back on the radar, and it wouldn't take the Alliance long to get their butts in gear and haul her in. Her Spectre status was gone with her death, but hopefully she'd be gone before they worked out that that hurdle was gone. Counselor Anderson might turn her over, but they went back far enough that he'd let her go.

Probably.

Either way, not the time to take the scenic route. But one stop was mandatory.

The clothing store was the lowest end she could find, but even then it was far out of her league. The asari store-worker's bright expression slowly darkened the more questions she asked. No, she wasn't looking for the latest trend, no she wasn't looking for a summer dress, whatever that was.

After another ten minutes Shepard gave up and headed towards an athletic apparel store and picked out another pair of gray running shorts and a plain black t-shirt. It was inappropriate for seeing an admiral, but maybe good enough to see an old friend. And, as an added bonus, she could sleep in something that had nothing to do with Cerberus. She'd have to see about getting some non-Cerberus civies some other time. She swiped her credit chit at the cashier's desk then went back into the changing room to put on her new clothes and dump her black and white Cerberus uniform in the little trash bin.

Alright, show time.

Shepard slid out of the store and joined the throngs of people moving back and forth. It felt different now. She didn't feel like there were unseen eyes searching for those Cerberus logos Now she was invisible. Another face in the crowd.

She made it to the rapid transit system without incident and slipped into the aircar. Her omnitool glowed orange on her wrist as the meter drained her account of the appropriate number of credits. Idly she wondered what account she was accessing to pay for these things, as it certainly wasn't hers, which was drained and closed by the Alliance upon her death. Another gift of the Illusive Man, certainly, but it made her leery. Until she found the strings attached, she'd treat it like a bomb ready to go off at any moment.

The aircar lifted smoothly from its resting cradle and accelerated smoothly through the Citadel's atmosphere, pressing Shepard back into the pilot's couch, which quickly molded to her shape. The nose picked up, lifting her past even the tallest towers and up towards the stars and another arm of the Citadel far above. The aircar creaked as it broke atmosphere and the cold fingers of hard vacuum tugged at the air-car's plastic composite shell.

_The vacuum of space clawed at her, sucking her away from Joker and the last life pod._

Shepard shuddered and focused on the view ahead of her. The inner ring of the Citadel which connected all of the arms together, commonly known as the Presidium, home of the wealthy and powerful, host to the Diplomatic Embassies of dozens of species, and seat of power fo the Council, wasn't much to look at from this distance, but that changed as it grew in the windshield. Green gardens, lush with plant life from across the galaxy, started to appear amidst the sculpted white buildings, followed by the blue of the reservoirs, pools, and fountains.

The aircar gave a barely perceptible rattle as it eased back into atmosphere and darted through the glittering sea of high-end luxury aircars to find its resting place near the human embassy.

Shepard climbed out and looked up at the massive white building. She winced, squinting into the blinding reflected light, and looked away. Well, no time like the present, before the Alliance could blockade the doors. She set off for the doors, ignoring the glances the business-suited and evening-dressed Presidium crowd shot her direction.

Not surprisingly, the human guard at the front desk stopped her immediately. "I'm sorry ma'am, but this building is restricted to official business of the Counselors only." Shepard frowned a the woman's light but unmistakable emphasis on the word official.

"I'm here to see Counselor Anderson."

"And I'm next in line to see Shai'ira. Sorry ma'am, I asked politely once, but we take security seriously here on the Presidium. Now I'm asking you to leave. Now."

Shepard crossed her arms and tried to clamp down her emotions. The stress and doubt of the past few days had frayed her temper dangerously short. "Look, I'm sure you mean well, but there's not a chance in hell you could make me leave. Now why don't you save us both the trouble and tell Counselor Anderson that _Commander Shepard_ is here to see him."

The guard pulled an M6 pistol out from what must have been a concealed holster and stepped out from behind the desk. Shepard's ears popped at the hum of a shield generator coming to life. This woman wasn't messing around; she lined her gun up exactly to Shepard's center mass.

"You've got guts, I'll give you that much. But it's time to stand down. You're the 17th woman trying to pass herself off as Commander Shepard. Every time the Counselor gets his hopes up, and it tears him apart every time to see that it's all a lie. No more."

Pain lanced through Shepard's heart. "You have no idea. I wish I could walk away from it all. But I can't. You hear me!? I _CAN'T!_" Biotic power flared up around her unbidden, a blue haze hovering over her skin, concentrated around her two clenched fists. "I will see Anderson. Now."

The guard took an involuntary step back before she could stop herself. For a long moment they locked eyes, each daring the other to back down. After five long seconds the guard reached over to her desk and nit the intercom without taking her eyes, or her gun, off Shepard. "Counselor, there's a woman here to see you. You should come down to see her with great alacrity."

There was silence for half a beat too long before Anderson's terse acknowledgment. Something was wrong. The odd phrasing the guard had used, it must have been a code word, some sort of bug-out signal.

"Anderson, wait, could you at least see an old friend before running for the hills?"

::Shepard? No, you're dead. It can't be. Just another politician trying ot get under my skin. Again.::

The biotics slipped away from her as she rushed towards the intercom, heedless of the guard's trained weapon, with the desperation of a woman about to lose one of the last friends she had.

"Anderson, wait, please! It's me! I can prove it, please, just listen to me! Remember when you punched Udina in the face to help us get back to the Normandy? Anderson?"

The guard reacted to that one, something both Anderson and Udina had failed to mention in their official reports, if for very different reasons, but Shepard ignored her. The intercom was silent for a long time. Then . . .

::Send her up.::

"But, sir-"

::Do it. I understand the risk, Lieutenant. Just do it.::

The Lieutenant ground her teeth so hard Shepard could almost hear it, but she lowered her gun.

Good enough.

Shepard strode up the steps and around the corner to Anderson's door, then stopped. Her emotions were a jumble within her, the broken pieces of who she had once been tossed and turned, the jagged edges of the pieces still sharp enough to cut. Would Anderson recognize her? Was it better or worse if he didn't? Would he try to act like nothing had happened? Would he reject her as an abomination, a mockery of the Shepard who had died?

There was no way to know.

She had turned half-way back to leave when she heard the distinct sound of a pistol unfolding itself as it was drawn from around the corner. She didn't want to kill the woman, so forward it was. A deep breath, a knock, and she entered.

Admiral Anderson stood with his back to her, hands clasped behind him, looking somehwo wrong in the counselor's robes instead of his blue and gold Alliance uniform. He stood tall and straight, strong, an unstoppable force that took whatever challenge presented itself in stride. He was competence, discipline, honor. He was everything the Alliance strived to be.

"_Shepard, it's good to finally meet you. I've heard good things."_

_ She kept the mask of professionalism and competence in place, but behind it she glowed with pleasure at being complement by the living legend._

_ "Likewise, Captain Anderson. I look forward to working with you."_

_ Anderson gave her a rare smile, the white of his teeth standing out against his dark skin. "Just like I heard; professional to your bones. Relax, Lieutenant Commander, the crew isn't around to watch us now. Take a seat and tell me a little about yourself. I like to get a feel for the people I'm going to be working with."_

"A – Anderson?" She winced at the stutter and did her best to keep form tearing up in front of Anderson while emotions warred within her. Relief at finally being with someone she could hand things off to, someone she could trust, battled with the burning neat not to shame herself in front of her superior, the one she respected so highly. She wanted to rage and rail at the confused uncertainty, to stand tall and strong, to break down in tears of relief and despair, to run away from his gaze, to stare him in the eye and dare him to judge her.

She settle for coming to attention and holding back both tears and curses.

Anderson turned and faced her, the wrinkle lines deep on his worn face. "Shepard?"

_"Shepard? Where are you? Shepard!"_

_ The voice was what brought her back from the oblivion that surrounded her, the darkness both metaphysical and real. She sucked in a breath and coughed weakly on the dust. She tried to move, but the pile of debris held her pinned. If not for her combat armor she would have been crushed. The muffled voices continued._

_ "I'm sorry sir, but she's gone. No one could have survived that."_

_ "No, Shepard is alive, I know it. Keep searching, damnit, that's an order."_

_ "Yes, sir." The voice wandered off, shouting orders in the distance, but her voice stayed close. Always close. "Come on Shepard, come back to me. I'm not giving up on you, no matter how long it takes."_

_ It was the voice that kept her forcing one painful breath of air after another for those endless hours in the darkness. And at last, when they'd finally dug her out, she'd had the strength to say only one thing before her strength had finally given out._

_ "_Captain, I came back."

* * *

><p>The words touched something deep within Admiral Anderson as he looked into the eyes of the young woman before him. And she was young. The scars of experience were missing from the familiar features,leaving the smooth skin of a late twenty-something, but they hadn't vanished. No, they'd gone deeper, sunk inside her. The pain in her eyes, the pleading, tugged at his heart. And the words – if whatever she'd been through took her back to those hellish hours, pinned, helpless, slowly suffocating to death, then what she had been through was truly awful. But beneath it all was the joy and pain of realizing that it was Shepard. She was alive, but she was hurting, as badly and as truly as any screaming soldier on the front line, for all that her wounds were not visible.<p>

"Shepard."

He broke his command posture and closed the distance between them to give her a bear hug. Shepard remained stiff as a board in his arms, but he could feel warm tears soaking into the shoulder of his Counsel robe before he broke the embrace.

"Please, come in, sit down,can I get you something to drink?"

Shepard sat and nodded wordlessly. Anderson tactfully kept busy in the drinks cabinet, giving Shepard the chance to compose herself. After a couple sniffs there was silence, and Anderson allowed himself to find the sugary drinks he'd been looking for. The last thing Shepard needed now was alcohol. He tossed her the fizzy drink before opening his own and settling into his own chair. He used the time to surreptitiously study Shepard.

She hid it well, but not even she could hide it from him. She was on the edge, the tipping point between coming back from whatever she'd gone through and going over the edge of that precipice from which you could never really return.

What she needed, what she was looking for, was something to help pull her the rest of the way. Paternal pride filled him, pride that she had made it this far, come most of the way back all alone, as well as a mix of awe and respect for the sacred trust he'd been given that she had come to him.

She was here asking for help with all the quiet desperation of a last hope so faint that to say it aloud would destroy it. And she was asking for it not from Counselor Anderson, the representative of mankind to the galaxy, not from Admiral Anderson, her Alliance and now Spectre superior, but from David, longtime friend and fellow soldier who'd been downrange with her when it counted.

Alliance Command would have his head for this, but Shepard was one of his people, and some ties were too tight to break, come hell or high water. She'd come back once again for him. He wouldn't let her down.

* * *

><p>The Admiral watched her in thoughtful silence for several long moments while Shepard struggled to find the words to say. There was so much she wanted to express, to get out, but words were inadequate. If somehow she could just communicate her feelings directly as they overflowed out of her. But she had to say something, she had to try.<p>

"Anderson, I . . ."

"Shepard, leave it be. Whatever happened to you, whatever you've been through, you don't need to explain it. You came back tome. You are the same Shepard I knew for all those years, and nothing can ever change that."

There was no holding back the tears. All the emotions she could never have hoped to express were between them now, shared. He understood. He _understood_.

No words were necessary.


	14. Taking Control

**Hello everyone! It has been quite a while since I've updated this story. I'm afraid it's been a very up-and-down ride for me. Many thanks to Sidnika for reminding me of this story and getting me back into it. I can't promise anything, but I'll do my best to keep working on it. I have bits and pieces written out, and I have a fair bit planned out. Reviews really encourage me to keep going on it, and I say that seriously. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope to return to this story a lot more regularly in the future.**

**Chapter 14: Taking Control**

Joker wasn't sure what to make of Commander Shepard's appearance on the Normandy the next morning after she'd crashed on Counselor Anderson's couch for the night. _Man, how many people in the galaxy think to themselves, "Hey, I want to go crash at a friends house, why don't I try the Counselor and see if he's got an open couch?"_ He brushed away the thought and focused again on Shepard's face. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, like she'd been crying _(is that even possible?)_ but she seemed more relaxed, more . . . calm, than before.

"Alright Joker, let's get out of here before some dock worker thinks to check what those gigantic Cerberus logos plastered all over the side of my ship mean and get us all arrested."

"Aye aye ma'am. Running for the hills."

She raised an eyebrow at him but let it slide before turning to walk back through the CIC. What was she thinking now? Another mystery. He busied himself pulling out of the private dock and got an immediate clearance for departure. Not for the first time he wondered how much money the Illusive Man had spread around to make sure nobody seized the ship or set C-Sec on them. It wasn't like they'd been _hiding _on the Citadel or anything.

"Mr. Moreau, Commander Shepard did not specify a course."

"Nope, but she didn't have to. We're clearing out of Counsel space for a while, so that means back to the Terminus Systems. Shepard will let us know where once we get closer."

_But don't take too long, Shepard. I hope whatever you did on the Citadel helped, because we need some guidance here._

…

The QEC scanner buzzed to life, connecting the Normandy to the Illusive Man's base half a galaxy away through technology Shepard could never hope to truly understand. It was enough that the entangled particles did their vibrating thing and made the Illusive Man appear an arms-length away.

"Shepard, this is an unexpected call. Did you enjoy your little visit on the Citadel?" The Illusive Man sipped his drink casually before giving her a wan smile.

"You brought me on to do a mission. I want to talk about that, and only that."

TIM, as Shepard and pretty much everyone else had started thinking of him, frowned at her. "My time is valuable Shepard. What did you need to know that Miranda couldn't tell you?"

Shepard crossed her arms in front of her. "For starters, what the hell is our plan?"

"I told you Shepard, and I sent you a list of dossiers to-"

"You brought me back because I know what I'm doing. It's a waste of your investment to cut me out and leave me in the dark. Now stop treating me like an idiot and talk. You gave me dossiers to make a team. A team designed to do what? How in hell is a turian sniper or a psychotic biotic supposed to help me take down a Collector Cruiser? The scientist I can understand, but the rest?"

Shepard was keeping her temper under control, trying to keep her cool. It was only kind of working. Still, something must have gotten through to TIM because he paused for a moment before replying, and it wasn't just to blow her off.

"Alright, Shepard, you've made your point. We added each name to the list for a specific purpose. Think about what we know about the Collectors. They have a cruiser that we need to destroy. While we didn't know Archangel's identity, we guessed that anyone with the kind of training that surviving Omega with that many enemies required would have high level access to the turian hierarchy, hopefully enough to tap us into their research into Sovereign's main gun."

"Wait, the _turians_ have Sovereign's main gun?"

TIM nodded. "They didn't get it intact, of course, but we know they've been working on recreating it on a much smaller scale. As for the others, it should be clear. The scientist is to find a way to deal with the seeker swarms. The Collectors aren't killing the colonists, they're abducting them, which means that they're being held at some sort of base, which is why we need an expert at breaking and entering. Speaking of which, she's sent word that she's on board already."

"What? Who? How?"

TIM waived aside her questions. "Ask her yourself. The biotic is a backup plan. If the salarian can't find a countermeasure to the swarms, then a powerful biotic may be able to shield your team from them. Warlord Okeer has had direct contact with the collectors and can provide a first-hand account of their activities, and possibly a sample of working Collector technology. That each of them is a capable operator in their own right gives us a good chance at getting information from the Collectors directly the next time they hit a colony. Now, Commander, are you satisfied?"

Shepard wanted to reply with something snarky, but TIM had actually answered her question. And while he was a complete deuchebag, he was also one of the most well-connected deuchebags in the galaxy. If he could be useful, she wouldn't throw it all away over something stupid. At least, not until she could find someone to replace him.

Shepard nodded and the Illusive Man cut the connection, leaving Shepard standing alone in the dark.

…

"Edi, do you have any record of outbound transmissions?"

The wall-mounted display in Shepard's quarters pulsed red momentarily. "A block is preventing me from answering that question."

Shepard leaned forward, hands flat against the top of her desk, head lowered in frustration. "Edi, do you have any record of anyone breaking into the ship?"

"Negative, Commander Shepard."

"Edi, you have cameras _everywhere_ in the ship. How can you not know where they are?"

"Unknown. However, the port-side observation deck passive observation systems are currently off-line for scheduled maintenance."

Shepard raised her head. "Maintenance? How long is it scheduled for?"

"Unknown."

"Clarify."

"The duty log does not list an estimated completion time. It merely says 'ongoing.'"

Well, that answered that question. Whoever they were, they were good enough to submit a false maintenance report without Edi noticing and then disable whatever spying systems Edi had in there. Whoever it was, she was good. Very good.

A few moments later and Shepard stepped off the elevator and started walking towards the observation deck. There wasn't a plan, not really. She was just moving.

The door slid aside as she stepped inside then shut behind her, sealing her in on the quiet deck. No super spies were immediately evident. Shepard resisted the temptation to search the room; if this 'infiltration specialist' could hide from Edi, well, she wasn't going to find her by looking behind the bar or between the cushions. No, this required a different tactic.

She hit the round kong at the base of the viewports and settled comfortably on the couch as the protective shield raised to display a stunning vista of stars red and blue shifting wildly while sliding past as the Normandy cruised along at FTL, aimed at the still-distant Eagle Nebula relay. She let her mind drift, vaguely focused on the infiltrator.

What was she playing at? If she was supposed to be recruited, or employed, or whatever, why hide? It was unprofessional, almost . . . silly. Yes, there was definitely an element of childishness. And what about all of this business with the cameras? Was it a feint to throw her off, get her moving in the wrong direction? No, that didn't feel right. It was too aggressive, too in-your-face for someone that lived in the shadows.

It was a game.

Yes, that was it, a game. You couldn't hide forever on a ship if they knew to look for you, so whoever she was wasn't even trying - she'd hung out a flag saying here I am, come find me.

_Hm, I think it's been long enough for her to let her guard down._

"You can come out now."

There! The slightest indrawn breath, the faintest rustle of fabric on the silent deck. Shepard's eyes darted left and stared into empty space.

"Alright Shepard, you caught me."

The air shimmered and a smallish woman fizzled into reality next to Shepard on the couch. She wore a close-fitted black jumpsuit with gray accents. A detachable black hood lowered to nearly her eyes, leaving her face in shadow, while a balaclava hung around her neck. Of ocurse, if that outfit really could cloak for the nearly ten minutes she'd been sitting here its as light years ahead of the best cloaking technology she'd seen N7 Infiltrators experimenting with. She would be one to keep an eye on.

…

Yep, Shep was definitely one cool customer. Kasumi Goto watched her carefully out of the corner of her eye as they both stared out into space. Not even a twitch at her appearing out of tin air with technology she was pretty confident nobody in the Alliance had ever heard of. Given the woman's reputation for violence she'd been half afraid to find a knuckle-dragger, bt this . . . she had a brain and was comfortable with silence. She had potential.

"So, what's this job you're doing? Sounds interesting."

…

Shepard watched her closely from the corner of her eye, gauging the smaller woman's reactions. She was good. Incredibly good. There was no way she didn't know exactly what was going on here. Another game? No, there had been a harder undertone . . . a test.

Interesting. But sometimes tests worked two ways.

…

"Suicide mission. Go somewhere nobody's ever been, fight some people nobody's ever seen, and rescue some people that disappeared without a trace. You in?"

Kasumi hesitated a half-beat, taken off-guard by the suddenly blunt attitude. She stalled. "Your boss is paying a lot of money to make me interested."

…

Shepard raised an eyebrow and glanced over at the woman. Japanese? Regardless, even taken off-guard she'd deflected the question while probing for more information. It reminded her of a particularly illusive pain-in-the-ass. "He's not my boss, and with your skills money isn't an issue. Why risk it all for this mission? What are you getting out of this?"

The master thief turned to look Shepard in the eyes. "You're not one for beating around the bush, are you? Yes, I am getting something out of this, a promise from your Illusive Man."

Shepar was instantly on guard. Loose promises were bits of yourself in someone else's hands. "What promise?"

"Oh you know, nothing too difficult. I just need a friend to come with me to a house-warming party."

Just like that the serious was gone and the game was back in her voice. Well, there were some lines you couldn't bully her into crossing. Good to know.

"Well, do you need us to stop anywhere to pick up a gift?"

The woman smile, emphasizing for a moment the purple mark down the middle of her lower lip and just beyond. Lipstick? Tattoo? "No need. I had your guards load it for me. They were very helpful. IT's down in the shuttle bay in some boxes marked as delicate spare circuits. Though I could use some help bringing it up here."

Shepard shook her head and sighed. "Fine, fine. Tell them I okayed it. And welcome to the team."

"It's nice to meet you." The thief offered a gloved hand, which Shepard took. "Kasumi Goto, at your service."


End file.
